Let's start by separating the chaff from the grain: what is really happening on planet earth? For millennia we entered a new geological era. They call it Anthropocene, according to experts; it began when our species, homo sapiens-sapiens, began the neolithic revolution; which allowed us to advance in the production of our sustenance. Something revolutionary, certainly, because we come from beings that survived by hunting, fishing, gathering vegetables and anything edible or useful that we found. But; The energy revolutions have been much more important to understand the impact on the environment caused by our humanity. Which is a fact that can be verified - by any of us - just by taking a fleeting look around, wherever we are. Let me put it more clearly and specifically. I speak of the energy revolution, to imply the changes and progress that we have achieved in the past and in the present each time we learn and develop technologies to be more efficient in modifying the environment and producing resources - in some way always involving the use of energy - The first great energy revolution occurred, about a million years ago, when an extinct species of our ancestors - semi-humans - discovered how to manage, produce and maintain fire. Home, is a word that comes from bonfire, and that word refers to the stove where our food was cooked. During the last ten thousand years we have burned large areas around the globe and then planted them. Don't come to tell me someone that has not affected the environment. It is easier to burn than to cut down. Well, today it is cut down and then burned. That happens because today we have chainsaws.
The second great energy revolution was the Irrigation Revolution, I don't know if it happened first in ancient Egypt or in Mesopotamia. Thousands of years later it happened in India, in ancient China and finally in America. This Irrigation Revolution was very important; - was a revolution that required the appearance of the State to manage huge and extensive irrigation systems for large-scale planting. This made possible the cultivation of thousands of hectares and the appearance of great empires. In those first great empires the first great cities were also built.
In turn, in those first cities, with thousands of people, the first civilizations arose; as were ancient Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, the Hindus, the Chinese, the Incas and the Aztecs. Did you know that the Middle East was a place where lions lived? Even the Holy Bible mentions the lions that lived there... And what did those great beasts eat? Of course, large herbivores. Ah... So, there were big sheets. But what do we have today in those lands? Many deserts and no lions!!!
The third great energy revolution happened with the appearance of the steam engine. It originated, together with the technological inventions that accompanied it, our first great industrial revolution. Much mineral coal was required to be burned to maintain the enormous boilers of our first industries, railways or steam-powered ships. This caused a greater environmental depredation, large mining operations arose, which generated a lot of local and atmospheric pollution. The environment continued to change. At the end of the 19th century, the fourth great energy revolution arose. I know that perhaps that name that I give it is not the appropriate one; but, what I want to highlight is that these "Energy Revolutions" gave humanity greater power to make transformations, both in our lives and in the nature of planet earth.
