5
As humans, we continuously develop new technologies that allow us to ever
more effectively magnify our ideas and turn them into objects, large and small, in
the physical world. Mastery of science, economics, and design and a steady supply
of abundant energy and raw materials allow us to turn pockets of night into day
(Fig. 1.2) and have allowed some to realize their most complex plans in order to
make and distribute nearly anything wherever and whenever they want at massive
scales and in annual quantities counted in the billions and even trillions.
Fig. 1.1 Fragment of prehistoric cave painting using earth pigments in the “Hall of the Bulls” at
Lascaux (28,000–17,000 BCE). The cave is located in the Aquitaine region of France, in the
Dordogne department in the commune of Montignac. (Image courtesy of Peter 80 (2005), CC
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)
Fig. 1.2 The Black Marble. Lights burn steadily every night as glowing embers on a continental
scale. (Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS
data from Miguel Román, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (2016))
1.3 No Going Back: Impossible to Do Nothing
As humans, we continuously develop new technologies that allow us to ever
more effectively magnify our ideas and turn them into objects, large and small, in
the physical world. Mastery of science, economics, and design and a steady supply
of abundant energy and raw materials allow us to turn pockets of night into day
(Fig. 1.2) and have allowed some to realize their most complex plans in order to
make and distribute nearly anything wherever and whenever they want at massive
scales and in annual quantities counted in the billions and even trillions.
Fig. 1.1 Fragment of prehistoric cave painting using earth pigments in the “Hall of the Bulls” at
Lascaux (28,000–17,000 BCE). The cave is located in the Aquitaine region of France, in the
Dordogne department in the commune of Montignac. (Image courtesy of Peter 80 (2005), CC
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license)
Fig. 1.2 The Black Marble. Lights burn steadily every night as glowing embers on a continental
scale. (Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using Suomi NPP VIIRS
data from Miguel Román, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (2016))
1.3 No Going Back: Impossible to Do Nothing