Justin Rowlatt & Laurence Knight of BBC News writes, The Real Reason Humans Are The Dominant Species.
From early humans rubbing sticks together to make fire, to the fossil fuels that drove the industrial revolution, energy has played a central role in our development as a species. But the way we power our societies has also created humanity's biggest challenge. It's one that will take all our ingenuity to solve.
Energy is the key to humanity's world domination.
Not just the jet fuel that allows us to traverse entire continents in a few hours, or the bombs we build that can blow up entire cities, but the vast amounts of energy we all use every day.
Consider this: a resting human being requires about the same amount of energy as an old-fashioned incandescent light bulb to sustain their metabolism - about 90 watts (joules per second).
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.
The average American, for example, consumes about 10,000 watts.
That difference explains a lot about us - our biology, our civilisation and the unbelievably affluent lifestyles we all lead - compared, that is, with other animals. > Read More
