Column : Evolution of the good

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: The new government—whatever be the acronym of its political combination—will take office against the backdrop of a combustible combination of global threats—terrorism, financial meltdown, energy scarcity, climate change, regional civil strife and possibly a pandemic virus. Each of these threats could (if it has not already) spill over our borders. The question is whether the new arithmetic in Parliament will allow individuals of requisite talent, experience, and competence to handle these emergent threats.

Time will provide the answers. What I wish to draw attention to here is the nature of the responses that will be required to successfully mitigate the consequences. Let me do so by drawing on historical experience.

Thomas Edison illuminated the lower half of Manhattan in 1882. It was not until the mid-1930s that even half of the factories had displaced steam power with electric motors. The reason for this slow diffusion was the design of the factories. They had been built vertically to accommodate the pulley system of steam power generation. Electric motors could not be accommodated within this architectural frame. The factories had to be consequently gutted and rebuilt before they could be electrified.

A century later computers hit the markets. This was a comparably revolutionary breakthrough. The economic benefits were self-evident. Yet it was years before computers occupied the interstices of the economy—a puzzle that provoked Prof Robert Solow to remark ‘computers are everywhere but in the productivity statistics’. In this case the reasons were institutional and corporate inertia and the instinctive reluctance of humans to alter ingrained habits.

I have outlined these two experiences to highlight three trends. First the lag between technological breakthroughs and its material impact. Second, the inherent physical and psychological (human) limits to the quick and widespread application of new ideas and products and third the need for a multidimensional and coordinated approach (ie, there are no silver bullets). Let me elaborate this last point further through the lense of energy scarcity and environmental protection.