Human Ingenuity – Our Greatest Magic

A lot of people have mentioned all the miracles of human technology and ingenuity, especially when we pull together for a greater cause, rather than focusing solely on our own desires. What I’d like to know is why we, as a society, refuse to make even the slightest shift away from petroleum, even in the simplest ways. We all want to have our cake and eat it too. We want it all cheap, plentiful, and right now, without acknowledging the true costs.

But the fact is, if we make the effort to transition our economy away from its near-total reliance on petroleum, eventually the new energy technologies will also be cheap and plentiful. It’s the transition that is difficult, but it’ll have to come eventually.

Oil wells dry out. That’s why we’ve moved to deep off-shore drilling. The truth is, consumption is increasing, while the supply is in decline. And every time we stretch out further in search of petroleum, it gets more difficult and costly. Why not stretch our human ingenuity and creativity instead, in truly new directions?

We, as a species, have done it before. We can do it again. After all, once all we had was wood and dung. Do you think we have reached the limits of what we are capable of? Is this really the best we can do? It doesn’t need to be about waiting around for other people to come up with the solutions.

You could be like the first person to pick up two sticks and rub them together. That’s all ingenuity is, just opening your mind to new ideas and possibilities, rather than waiting around for someone else to do it. The solution might not be the next big bang, but just a lot of little light bulbs turning on in our heads that makes the difference. I’m working on ideas too, but it would be so much more exciting if our whole country got motivated to make the necessary changes to lessen our reliance on petroleum.