by historian Bret Devereaux, who used scholarship to answer the question: why didn’t the Roman Empire have an industrial revolution? In answering the question, Devereaux notes that the industrial revolution was never inevitable.
Basically, absent the unique circumstances of the 18th century British economy, it’s possible the industrial revolution might not have happened for centuries more–if ever. Devereaux argues that “each innovation in the chain required not merely the discovery of the principle, but also the design and an economically viable use-case to all line up in order to have impact.
Of course, the flip side of that industrialization was also a massive scale-up of environmental issues, from climate change to algal blooms to microplastics.
The Salton Sea region has one of the world’s largest known reserves of lithium, enough to power batteries for more than 50 million electric vehicles within a few years. But first it must be extracted from hot geothermal brine loaded with toxic material, a process that’s never been done before at scale.
I'm JESUS CHRIST 'Michael Archangel'the Vengeance and every kind of payment belong to me!There will be so much famine that you will eat the flesh of your children,and each one will eat the flesh of his neighbor.I am the angel of death,the son of God.When I act who will stop me?