We Are Our Own Best Resource

by Charlotte Capaldo 

State of the world publications typically support two common threads: pessimism, and politics. In our bipartisan nation opinions are often shaped by our political affiliates interpretations’ of science. In their attempt to win votes, political leaders tie things like climate change to other political issues, tossing the matter into the bottomless pot of political debates. Yet in his book The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet, Ramez Naam offers a refreshing perspective to the dreary story to which we have grown accustomed, depoliticizing the science because he believes we can change.

As an Egyptian immigrant to the United States, Naam’s life has been one of overcoming the odds. His parents taught him how to pursue a life seemingly out of reach, leading him to the land of diverse opportunities. Naam says this fuels his optimism, and his account begs of the reader to forge their own path of self-discovery to mine the humility the world needs to continue in prosperity. Naam reminds us that we all have something to fight for together.

Naam is not shy about tackling just about every aspect of the changing world, concisely arguing that, with the right choices, we, the planet and its citizens, will live long and prosper. There is something to appeal to everyone in this book, both the developed and the developing world. Tales of adventure narrate the informative text, which is littered with shocking facts and surprising insights. We see Naam riding his bicycle the length of Vietnam, hiking through the Guatemalan rainforest, and to the peak of Mount Rainier in the dark morning hours with a dead head lamp. This man has seen some of the most exotic ecosystems on the planet—and not just on a screen narrated by David Attenborough. His love of the natural world is apparent, as well as his love of humanity, whom he commends throughout the book as great problem-solvers, reminding readers of the feats we’ve accomplished in developing this planet.

Innovators, politicians and corporations alike have continuously made life on earth more efficient. As densely populated countries like China and India enter the developed world, the notion of finiteness plagues our thoughts. Naam, though, argues that while resources are finite, knowledge only accumulates—it is the “invisible resource,” and a multiplying agent of physical resources. While we may run out of oil, we will never run out of innovative ideas about new energy sources to replace or conserve it.

Naam states that “it doesn’t matter where innovation comes from. The best of them will spread. What matters most is that we encourage more innovation, period. And the best way to do that is to see the developing world rise out of poverty and into wealth.” His story is full of ideas—plans really—about turning the tables. It is a worthy read for anyone remotely interested in, or concerned with the state of humanity and the planet. His invigorating and factual tale will inspire hope in you, and will implore you to discover your own source of optimism.

Ramez Naam’s book, The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet  is available here: http://www.amazon.com/Infinite-Resource-Power-Finite-Planet/dp/161168255X/ He’s available to speak at startups and networking events around the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Charlotte Capaldo is a freelance science and technical writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. She may be reached at charlotte.capaldo@gmail.com 

Orion Nebula

A few weeks ago, Dr. Eliot Quataert from UC Berkeley came to Oakland’s Chabot Space and Science Center to tell a modern fairy tale: the scientific story of how we, and our world, came to be.

He started by putting up some photos, illustrating the scale of the universe. Our solar system’s one light year across, compared to our whole galaxy, a hundred thousand light years across. The Milky Way contains a hundred billion stars and planets, and weighs roughly a trillion times the mass of our sun. Our nearest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda, is three million light years away.

Dr. Quataert shared quotes from Carl Sagan and Douglas Adams dealing with our relative insignificance in the face of the vast universe. We can certainly feel very small when we think about being out on the edge of our galaxy, in the Milky Way’s suburbs. And, as large as the Earth seems to us humans, light can travel around our planet in just a tenth of a second.

Back in 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble first observed the universe expanding. Everything seemed to constantly move away from everything else. In more recent years, scientists speculated that gravity would eventually slow the expansion of the universe. However, data showed that the expansion was actually accelerating. For this to happen, according to Quataert, 74 percent of the universe must be composed of something we do not yet understand that can overcome gravity. For now, we refer to it as ‘dark energy.’

The Big Bang theory and subsequent expansion of the universe has predicted many phenomena we see in the universe today. For example, we observe background leftover microwave radiation, a holdover from the smooth early universe. Also, that our world contains, as expected, roughly 74 percent hydrogen, 24 percent helium, and two percent heavier elements, including nitrogen, oxygen, and iron.

Hydrogen and helium, with their simpler atomic structures, would have formed three minutes after the Big Bang. Over time, as the world cooled, some matter condensed into heavier elements. 13.8 billion years ago, when data suggest the Big Bang occurred, the laws of physics could have been completely different. Perhaps the universe could have been infinite, even then, and it would not make sense to speak of its ‘center.’

The universe as a whole moves fast enough to escape the gravitational forces holding the matter together, although localized, small, matter-rich areas are imploding and pulling together. Some of these areas are clusters of hundreds or thousands of galaxies, with stars orbited by planets. Currently scientists estimate that ten percent of the universe’s stars have planets one to two times Earth’s size, and have identified 3,000 exoplanets beyond our solar system.

We’ve come a long way from the Big Bang and the days of hot, dense, undifferentiated matter. But, no one yet knows why our universe expands, or where we’re headed. While we wait, though, we can take Dr. Eliot Quataert’s insights and share them in our conversations with others curious about the universe.

Cristina Deptula may be reached at cedeptula@sbcglobal.net and welcomes other science writing gigs, especially paying ones!