...no matter how complex or affluent, human societies are nothing but subsystems of the biosphere, the Earth's thin veneer of life, which is ultimately run by bacteria, fungi and green plants. Vaclav Smil More Quotes by Vaclav Smil More Quotes From Vaclav Smil Energy is the only universal currency: one of its many forms must be transformed to another in order for stars to shine, planets to rotate, plants to grow, and civilizations to evolve. Vaclav Smil stars civilization order I've read about 80 books a year for the past 50 years. I come from cultural breeding. I don't have a cellphone. When you spend all your time checking your cellphone messages, or updating your Facebook (of course I don't have a Facebook page) then you don't have any time for reading. Vaclav Smil reading book past Apple! Boy, what a story. No taxes paid, everything made abroad - yet everyone worships them. This new iPhone, there’s nothing new in it. Just a golden color. What the hell, right? When people start playing with color, you know they’re played out. Vaclav Smil iphone color boys Everyone [in higher education] was what I call drillers of deeper wells. These academics sit at the bottom of a deep well and they look up and see a sliver of the sky. They know everything about that little sliver of sky and nothing else. I scan all my horizons. Vaclav Smil horizon sky looks A useful analogy is to see traditional societies as relying on instantaneous (or minimally delayed) and constantly replenished solar income, while modern civilization is withdrawing accumulated solar capital at rates that will exhaust it in a tiny fraction of the time that was needed to create it. Vaclav Smil income analogies civilization You get up and, first thing in the morning, you do your 500 words. Do it every day and you’ve got a book in eight or nine months. Vaclav Smil eight morning book Collaboration and augmentation are the foundational principles of innovation. Vaclav Smil collaboration innovation principles Your past always leads to who you are. Vaclav Smil your you always past Killing animals and eating meat have been significant components of human evolution that had a synergistic relationship with other key attributes that have made us human, with larger brains, smaller guts, bipedalism, and language. Vaclav Smil key language eating relationship People shouldn't be living in certain places - on earthquake faults or on flood plains. But they do, and there are consequences. Vaclav Smil earthquake consequences living people If everyone wants to eat like people in Bangladesh, then we would have food coming out of everybody's ears. Vaclav Smil eat everyone food people Our increasingly electrified, electronic, and data-driven society places steadily rising demand on reliable baseload power - that is, on electricity available 24/7/365. Servers never sleep, nor does air conditioning during hot nights, and in Asia's megacities, subways and electric trains take only brief naps between midnight and 5 A.M. Vaclav Smil society power hot sleep Exceptional circumstances can accelerate the gradual process of energy transitions: France's decision to develop nuclear energy on a grand scale is perhaps the best example of how that can be done by government fiat. In contrast, America's accelerated shift from coal has been driven by an inevitable embrace of cheaper natural gas. Vaclav Smil best government energy decision This is the question I'm asking: Do Americans live twice as long because they consume twice as much energy as Europeans? Are you people twice as smart as the average Frenchman? Do you enjoy life twice as much as the average Danish guy? What have we gotten for consuming twice as much energy as Europe? What have we gotten in return? Vaclav Smil you enjoy-life life people In every society, manufacturing builds the lower middle class. If you give up manufacturing, you end up with haves and have-nots, and you get social polarization. The whole lower middle class sinks. Vaclav Smil end you society class The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking. Vaclav Smil great energy hope thinking Harvesting the biosphere is still the most fundamental human activity. Without that, everybody's dead, really. We could do quite well without microchips, or the business site of 'Atlantic Monthly,' the gated communities, Guccis, and high-growth GDP. But we cannot do without harvesting the crops and cutting down the wood. Vaclav Smil wood dead down business The problems that ail the U.S. economy and American society are one and the same: Both consume too much and refuse to make badly needed changes. This is true above all in the realm of energy. Vaclav Smil true problems society energy You cannot increase the efficiency of photosynthesis. We improve the performance of farms by irrigating them and fertilizing them to provide all these nutrients. But we cannot keep on doubling the yield every two years. Moore's law doesn't apply to plants. Vaclav Smil plants performance you law Renewable energy is very significant. Vaclav Smil very renewable-energy energy
