In just the last century and a half, mankind has harnessed two transformative energy sources, electricity and petroleum. Envision the world as it existed before that.
Without electricity, information moved no faster than a horse could travel. There was no telephone, no telegraph, no radio, television or internet. No computers, of course, so no modern banking, manufacturing, education or warfare (the latter perhaps not a bad thing). Even something as basic as food preparation was enormously time consuming and preservation was uncertain. There was no refrigerator, no freezer, no microwave, no electric stove, no dishwasher. “Domesticated” electricity made all these things possible.
Petroleum provided the means to drive an internal combustion engine, but it gave us much, much more than that. Before the first petroleum well was drilled in the 1870s there was no kerosene for lanterns, no heating oil, and most importantly no plastics.
Walk through your house, your office, your school. Look around you. Mentally remove every item that was produced by or utilizes electricity or petroleum. What remains is a startlingly basic– and even barren– environment.
IMAGE: Amish by Michelle Lavoie is licensed under CC by 2.0
HEADER IMAGE: Circuit: Computer Circuit Board by Yuri Samoilov is licensed under CC by 2.0