I can't help but think about the very first steam engine at this time. You know the Greek one. I heard debate from people more scholarly than I about how the Greeks invented such a revolutionary device yet failed to ever utilize it. One idea that always stuck with me is this: Steam power was too new, too expensive and competed with the main economy at the time. Slave power, is far cheaper and made many wealthy people. In fact, motorized power never really became popular until we realized those different colored things were also people.
The damage removing ourselves from oil will cause is going to be dramatic no matter when we do it. Still, if the Greeks had sucked it up and relied on human ingenuity, instead of greed, people like us would be complaining about the wait time for the Alpha Centari Interdimensional Shuttle. At the rate modern technology doubles the longer we wait to advance our economic needs, the more damage is done to all of us through all of history. That and oil having such huge impact on global society is really not cool. What happened to diversifying investments?
Colin Kinkade
Mancos
