Dreaming the end of our own Stone Age

Master stonemasons built a masterpiece of stone in the form of Lund's Domkyrka cathedral

The following quote is a cathedral of thought, and one of the most inspiring sentiments I've come across in a long, long time:

“The Stone Age did not come to an end because we had a lack of stones . . .”

                                                    Ahmed Zaki Yamani, regarding our apparent addiction to fossil fuels

Before leaving you to reflect on Ahmed Zaki Yamani's stroke of genius, I have to point you to an excellent New York Times article that shows some of the complexity of leaving our own version of the Stone Age. The article treats the topic of some of my earlier posts on wind power (see my list of labels). As the New York Times article describes so well, the politics of striding towards alternative futures is not so simple, and full of ironies. Check out:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/science/earth/denmark-aims-for-100-percent-renewable-energy.html?_r=0

More on this in my next post! Turn a stone . . .

A planetary gas machine

Look, Mommy, the blue oxygen part is getting smaller! 

Imagine that we had a civilization that depended on living plants for its source of raw materials and energy (instead of fossil fuels). In that civilization, we were happy at the ease with which living plants provided us with all we needed, so that we hardly thought about how everything we relied upon in our everyday lives, our economy and our transport and trade could be provided by this readily accessible source.

Then, one day, as this parable continues, scientists told us that our "way of life" was creating an unwise surplus of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere. Our activities were creating such an imbalance that rapid climate change was in store. Just think how hard it would be to change everything, how difficult the possibility that we could shift into another kind of global economy would seem. After all, plants are everywhere and moving away from their use would ruin our way of life. Even though many scientists were trying to convince us to create a vast machine that would change the situation on a global scale, we would respond that it was too difficult. What was that enormous global machine? Yes, the machine was called the fossil fuel high carbon economy, and we could just move to that if we really really wanted to. But, we all joined in chorus, "We have so many plants and they are so easy to use! We have enough to last forever! Why change?"

If creating shifts on a global scale is so hard, isn't it ironic that we already have the alternative in place that that other civilization would find so unimaginable? Oh, yes, change is hard, isn't it? And just to make it clear, if we've been so successful in creating our present fossil fuel-burning machine, why can't we create a different one? But everyone says that that's so hard.

Now, meanwhile, in an alternative universe near you . . .