“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
—C.S. Lewis
The word salary is a Latin term that means money given to soldiers to buy salt or even “salt money.” Salt was important in the ancient world because it was used for preservation of food, religious rituals and even currency. Perhaps you’ve heard the cliché, “worth one’s salt.” This means someone who has earned their place or their pay. For anyone receiving a salary, it could be inferred that they were working to buy salt.
In the US, the average annual per capita consumption of salt is just over seven pounds. Salt seems to come in 26-ounce containers these days, which means you would need five of them to sustain all the salt you would need for a year with a surplus. At a price of $1.79 each, that means the average person in the US consumes about $8.95 per year of salt.
As of this writing, the federally mandated minimum wage is still $7.25. It’s hard to imagine that anyone is actually working for so little. It seems like the de facto minimum is much higher, probably $15 per hour. In any case, even the lowest paid worker can earn enough to buy all the salt needed for a year in little more than an hour. Restaurants can deploy saltshakers on a table knowing that if they get stolen, it would be for the saltshaker, not the salt inside!
In other words, what was once precious is now so cheap, it’s practically given away. It’s a demonstration of a World Without Limits.
We Are Never Going to Run Out of Resources
We are never going to run out of resources. Some might rebel at such a bold claim. How can it be true that on a finite planet composed at the molecular level of a limited number of atoms we can never run out of them? Human ingenuity is the infinity catalyst.
Human Ingenuity – The Infinity Catalyst
I’m an old school guy. I still like to read a physical newspaper. As a kid, I delivered newspapers. Maybe that’s where I got hooked on them.
Back then, newspaper market penetration exceeded 100%. That means the average home was getting more than one newspaper. I still get two of them. A kid like me could walk or ride a bike on a paper route and deliver newspapers to almost every house.
But even when I was young, television and other media sources were beginning to encroach on the newspaper trade. Today, there are no kids delivering newspapers. The houses still getting them are so few and far between that delivery can only be accomplished by automobile. Iconic newspapers like the Detroit Free Press don’t even produce a print edition every day anymore. And try finding one of those newspaper boxes you could insert a fist full of change into and get a newspaper. Newspapers aren’t even sold in bookstores anymore. Newspapers are about as easy to find as dinosaurs.
The days of cutting down trees and spilling ink to spread the news are quicky coming to an end thanks to the Infinity Catalyst of human ingenuity. Today, news is delivered digitally over the airwaves, internet, or microwave towers. The allocation of atoms to news delivery is trending to zero. Better still, in a world concerned with environmental impact and climate change, the extent of fossil fuels being expended on diesel trucks and gasoline automobiles for news delivery is likewise ending. Which is part of why we will also enjoy energy without limits.
Energy Without Limits
Like it or not, the prosperity we enjoy today was achieved by employing cheap and abundant energy. That trend is going to continue into an ever brighter future also run on cheap, abundant energy. But here’s a Reality Face Punch for my environmentalist friends. Fossil fuels aren’t going anywhere. Renewable energy will supplement, not supplant fossil fuels. The history of this being true is overwhelming.
Different energy forms have always been supplemental. We have yet to see one form of energy replace another. Long ago, wood was a primary energy source. In England, coal mining never supplanted wood. Instead, more wood than ever was consumed along with the coal. In the U.K., there are still wood burning electric utility plants and a single one of them uses more wood than Britain’s entire 18th century economy. Yet these wood burning plants only produce a small fraction of current energy output. We are not transitioning to a world fueled by renewable energy. The transition is only to more energy of all kinds.1
This will only come as unwelcomed news to environmentalists and climate change alarmists. In the meantime, more cheap energy means better hygiene, longer lifespans and better living conditions for emerging third world populations. Prosperity also leads to a cleaner environment, for example by the adoption of natural gas for heating and cooking rather than open fires fueled with wood. It also means more customers and trading partners in an ever more prosperous world.
The Tower of Babel
In the Bible, there is an account in the Book of Genesis Chapter 11 about how a population attempted to build a tower to the heavens. This event includes the message of the gospel because it outlines another attempt by people to reach heaven in their own strength instead of trusting in Jesus. God was not pleased by this tower building and confused the peoples’ language, causing them to disperse. The Bible also says there is nothing new under the sun, or that history repeats itself.
We tend to look upon our ancestors with smiling contempt, thinking them to be primitive. But while technology and circumstances change, human nature remains the same. We are equally capable of building our own Towers of Babel and climate change is certainly one of them. Our ancestors believed they could reach the heavens by building a tower. We think we can change the weather of the planet. Consider this discussion about Jesus in Matthew 8:27 ESV: And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”
The existential threat facing the world today is not climate change, but ambitious authoritarian rulers like those found in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Yet come back next time to learn while we will be living in a world at peace.
Notes:
- Wall Street Journal Irresistible March of Energy Realism, Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., 11/20/2024.