I’ve asked people lately to come up with examples they consider major advances in life in their lifetime not requiring extracting more fossil fuels. Or even the last century.

People come up with antibiotics, but they started long before; solar energy, but it requires fossil fuels; nuclear energy, but it requires fossil fuels; and then start giving up. I can’t think of much either. The Green Revolution fundamentally burns fossil fuels. Even my favorite sport, Ultimate, requires a disc made of plastic, which comes from fossil fuels. Everything about computers requires fossil fuels.

Maybe I’m just describing a failure of my imagination. Can you come up with examples we missed?

• ← Do addicts get less of what they think they get more of?
• Would you have opposed atrocities in the past? Do you oppose them today? →