Unravel the intriguing mystery behind human dominance on Earth. Explore the unique traits and evolutionary advantages that have propelled Homo Sapiens to the top of the food chain, shaping the world as we know it today.
Energy is the key to humanity’s world domination
A resting human being requires about the same amount of energy as an old-fashioned incandescent light bulb to sustain their metabolism
- But the average human being in a developed country uses more like 100 times that amount, if you add in the energy needed to get around, build and heat our homes, grow our food and all the other things our species gets up to
- Humanity’s exceptional relationship with energy began hundreds of thousands of years ago with our discovery of fire
- Anything that allows an organism to get energy more efficiently is going to have huge effects on the evolutionary trajectory of that organism
- Cooking transforms the energy available from food
- The carbohydrates, proteins and lipids that provide our bodies with nutrition are unravelled and exposed when they are heated
- That makes it easier for our digestive enzymes to do their work effectively, extracting more calories more quickly
Fossil fuels power much more than just cars
5% of the world’s natural gas supply is used to create ammonia-based fertilisers
- 13% of global coal production
- 8% of CO2 emissions are from concrete
- Burning fossil fuels has had an incredible effect on our standard of living
- Since the Industrial Revolution we have grown taller and healthier, our life expectancy has increased vastly, and in the developed world we are on average 30 to 40 times better off. All thanks to the energy revolution driven by fossil fuels
Climate change is the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced
Tackling it means changing how we do virtually everything.
The last Ice Age ended around 12,000 years ago
Global temperatures rose rapidly and then stabilised, and humanity embarked on its next energy transformation
- It was a revolution that would see the world reach unprecedented levels of technological change.
- Over hundreds of thousands of years, the climate constantly changed, with ice sheets advancing and retreating across the northern hemisphere.
The Rise of Agricultural Revolution
Cultivating crops was nearly impossible during the Ice Age, but the new warmer climate made it possible for plants to become domesticated.
- As the centuries passed, animals and plants domesticated in different locations became part of a kind of agricultural package, providing a much more reliable and abundant food source for people.
