Fire is the fundamental Human technology, the foundation of everything that came after in Human societies.

Controlled fire transformed our diet, physiology, psychology, language, social structure, technologies, and our relationship to the rest of nature.

300.000 years ago, fire-based technologies existed throughout Eurasia. Fire allowed Humans to seize caves previously occupied by other large, fierce mammals.

Fired pottery existed 20,000 years ago, and metallurgy 5,000 years ago. During this long history of fire use, hominids distinguished themselves from all other large mammals. Meanwhile, fire revolutionized Human Society.

When Human communities advanced into the Western Hemisphere, about 75% of large mammals (mastodons, mammoths, giant beavers, bears, and tigers) vanished.

Similar mass extinctions occurred when Humans arrived in Madagascar, Hawaii, and in New Zealand.

Evolutionary success has costs and, without restraints, can be fatal. Nature taught us to be aggressive and greedy, as survival skills, but did not teach us how to stop. We have to do that ourselves.

To solve our ecological dilemma, humanity has to reverse its expansion. Continued growth for a successful species that has overshot its habitat will lead to collapse.

Since 80% of our energy use comes from fossil fuels, we are essentially eating oil.

To achieve this level of food production, industrial agriculture has depleted soils, spread toxins, disrupted nutrient cylces, and launched an era of rapid global heating.

In short, humanity has used Earth’s vast energy stores to overshoot their ecological habitat.

Humanity’s destructive consumption of energy started with fire and that economy has not disappeared. Firewood use never declined and remains an important source of energy for Humans.

Coal did not replace wood, but only added to our energy consumption. Oil, gas, and nuclear power did not replace coal and hydropower, but only added to our energy consumption.

One might imagine replacing oil with renewables, but so far, renewable energy simply adds more energy. Human only stop using an energy source when it is depleted.