But how many of the earlier societies had thousands of years of experience to look back to? Wouldn't you say in a society where we're capable of talking to anyone anywhere in the world at any moment we'd be able to at least try and solve these problems?
We've solved so many problems that afflicted humanity for thousands of years in the past 200 years. So why not this one? I guess because, as the article says, to solve this problem we actually need to change society as a whole.
Their livelihoods are predicated as being part of a complex economic web and having good geopolitical conditions. Norway used to be one of the poorest European countries, now it is one of the wealthiest thanks to large oil reserves.
It's interesting to me that oil is one of--if not primary--reasons societies are so rich and industrious. We're burning through hundreds of millions of years of carbon sequestration in a few centuries. It really looks like rocket fuel for civilization. What will it look like when oil isn't so plentiful?
