Resilience in the 21st Century

I don't honestly know what's going to happen for the next 100 years but we're having trouble producing enough energy to keep the world running at its current economic level. It's doubtful the world can support 7 billion people let alone the 10 billion people that forecasters were predicting just a few years ago.

In the 1950s, we dreamed of abundant energy, but over the years we made many blunders and allowed ourselves to be overly dependent on oil. In truth, too many people in business and government seemed to be waiting for the major breakthroughs that were supposed to supply endless energy with a minimum of problems. Nuclear energy turned out to be difficult to manage and fusion of course never happened.

It is likel that much tragedy and sorrow lies ahead. How much no one can say. Maybe we'll luck out. Maybe somebody at the last minute will invent dreamosol and our energy problems will be solved. Or maybe people in places like the U.S. will recognize that we have a problem and get serious and launch a massive program for the next ten years to diversify our energy, simplify our lives and find more efficient ways to get things done. If not, the U.S. and the world are going to need lots of resilience in the years ahead.

There's still lots of energy but the core problem is that it's not likely to be enough for 7 billion people, let alone billions more. Still, maybe we can squeeze through the hard times with ten million little solutions But to get through the hard times, we're going to need resilience, the ability to deal with a bad situation and somehow manage to turn it around, even if it takes time, lots of time.

Resilience can be found in unlikely places. Here's a story from CNN (via Leanan of The Oil Drum) about a teenage boy in Malawi who took the future into his own hands:

...amid all the shortages, one thing was still abundant.

Wind.

(snip)

[William] Kamkwamba... ...spent his days at the library, where a book with photographs of windmills caught his eye.

"I thought, this thing exists in this book, it means someone else managed to build this machine," he said.

(snip)

Armed with the book, the then-14-year-old taught himself to build windmills. He scoured through junkyards for items, including bicycle parts, plastic pipes, tractor fans and car batteries. For the tower, he collected wood from blue-gum trees.

(snip)

Three months later, his first windmill churned to life as relief swept over him. As the blades whirled, a bulb attached to the windmill flickered on.

Keep in mind that the young man got better and better at building windmills and he's still at it, while teaching others how to do more. Read the full story and check out the two pictures. Better yet, drop CNN a line and let them know we need more stories like this. If there's a future in the year 2200, it will be because of kids like William Kamkwamba, whether they are found in Africa, the United States or anywhere else in the world.