What is energy’s role in cultural transitions?
Changes in energy conditions generate sweeping changes in society, including the transformation of culture and rise and fall of civilizations. Fire transformed human life by providing light, warmth, cooking, heating and ultimately the ability to smelt and forge metals, and to bake bricks, ceramics, and lime. Fire became the basis for human culture long before the Bronze Age, and ultimately all Western culture. However, up until a couple of centuries ago, the fire typically was produced by burning ‘recent’ carbon stored in biomass.
