Quote of the Day: Tom Friedman on "Invent, Invent, Invent!"

The inventions would come if the money was there. The problem is there are physics problems that are insurmountable, namely energy is always expensive.

If there is more money in reconfiguring human settlement patterns and modes of life, that will be the issue that takes the investment capital. Certainly its cheaper to build more local stores and grow more local food and put more buses on the road than sinking money into something like fusion which, if it was attainable, would have been attained by now.

And our Republican Presidential candidate doesn't use a personal computer? Hmm...DB

Keep up the good work Tom!

We do need more inventors, but we also need to do more to showcase the people that are already inventing. After all Monkey see, Monkey do.

I am doing all I can and hopefully you are too.

Lets show China who the real world power is! Innovation made in America. The one thing that can't be outsourced.

We have the ability to make a HUGE impact with renewable energy. If our political leaders (?) would put in decent tax breaksfor the various ways to produce our own power, we would have the solution well under way. The real problem, IMHO, with small scale solar (PV / Wind) and microhydro is lobbyist for nonrenewable energy can afford to buy our elected officials favors. We have the best government money can buy. It's just that we the people don't happen to be the high bidders.

As WWII was winding down, and the Japanese were facing the reality of being invaded by the allies, the Emperor put out a call to defend the home islands "by means of invisible inventions".

Of course, nothing came of it because you can't fiat creativity, it kind of just occurs, often when you least expect it, and it doesn't come when you most need it.

It seems to me we shouldn't be pinning the future of humanity on things that don't exist yet. Fossil fuels are running out, and the world population has swollen to such a size that without a replacement, billions of people will die. Instead of inventing things, we need a huge shift toward sustainable technologies that already exist (and are improving incrementally): electric transport, rail for long distance travel, solar, wind, & geothermal for electric production, etc. Producing millions of barrels per day of algal biodiesel or electric production from fusion shouldn't be the basis of future policy.

As a tech geek I am aware of certain managers who on the advent of technological innovation taking over the office specified that all reports were to initially to be "written on yellow legal pads with pen because that's how we do things here"

Instead of "drill, drill, drill", "drill baby, drill" or even "invent, invent, invent" the renewable power lobby should be chanting "Renewable! invest, invest, invest"

@rob: "The inventions would come if the money was there. The problem is there are physics problems that are insurmountable, namely energy is always expensive."

What does that even mean? A lack of money is hardly a physics problem, and building renewable energy generating capacity is profitable and becoming more so every year. What problems are insurmountable, exactly?

Since when are people dying from lack of energy? I don't understand why this is even as big an issue as it seems to be. Looking to the government to solve this for us is childish and stupid.

Cut yourself free and never look back, it's not as hard as you'v been led to believe.

@ One Earth
People in Africa are dying without energy. There's no electricity to power plants to clean the water, to cook their food, to refrigerate medicines. These all combine to result in an earlier death rate compared to countries with high electrical usage.

Anthony -

Energy is always expensive because of the laws of physics. We're coming out of an era of available energy, and we need to adjust. Renewables are never going to provide us with the same level as we used to have, and nuclear is too costly, when you factor in the risks.

I'm saying we have to not only make our grid more renewable, but we have to invent new ways of living and arranging ourselves (and new cultural practices that allow us to tolerate low energy realities comfortably), not just try and invent some kind of way out of this, which, if it were predictably reachable, probably woulda been reached already.