We're moving from the Industrial Age to the Information Age

I want to start 2008 by explaining a rather complicated historical concept. This is the notion of "ages" or "eras". An age or era is a period in human history characterized by broad categories of lifestyle, culture and technology. Whilst it's a rather simplistic way of categorizing history, we can think of history as having five major eras (so far!).

The Prehistoric Era
The Prehistoric Era is so named because it was the era prior to the human invention of writing. Therefore there was no history recorded in writing (although it's important to remember that prehistoric tribes and communities did have oral histories - that is, that remembered their local histories and spread them from one generation to the next through telling stories orally). In this era technology was still very simple. Humans used stones, bones and other naturally occurring products as tools. There were no domesticated animals or crops. People lived in small bands or tribes and were hunters and gatherers. This means they lived directly off the land. When the food and water supply in one area depleted, they moved on to another area. The main source of energy for these people was food and human muscle.

The Ancient Era
This is the era when agriculture began to be adopted on a large scale by many societies. Some of the earliest agricultural societies occurred in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), the Indus Valley (modern Pakistan), the Ganges Valley (modern northern India), central China, the Aztec in central America, and around the Mediterranean, notably Greece and Rome (modern Italy). Farming allowed human communities to store food (known as a surplus). This meant also that not everyone needed to be involved in food production and allowed for some people to pursue specialized trades like for instance blacksmiths that made metal products. Early agricultural societies were responsible for the earliest forms of writing, and hence we have some written records from these ancient peoples.

Because agricultural societies had a surplus of food and specialization of labour, many people chose to settle in ever enlarging cities. These cities were the first in the world, but were not as big as today's metropolises. Because ancient people had access to and were able to work out how to domesticate certain animals (e.g.: horses, cows, chickens, pigs) and crops (e.g.: wheat, rice, barley, olives, potatoes, apples) they were able to increase the food supply and use animal power to increase their productivity. A horse or ox could plough more fields more quickly than a man. So animal power became more important than human power alone.

Industrial Era
The Industrial Era began in northern Europe in the late 18th Century. It was brought about by the invention of machines and in particular the steam engine. The steam engine allowed humans to harness enormous amounts of energy deposited in coal to be used to power machines in factories that could produce far greater quantities of goods than ever before. Later the internal combustion engine, jet engine and nuclear reactor allowed humans to convert the energy in oil and uranium to be used to power larger machines, and to produce electricity. This much greater degree of production of food and goods led to an exponential increase in the human population. There was greater specialization of the work force and more urbanization (meaning more and more people came to work in cities in factories and stores instead of being farmers).

Where are we now?
Currently we are living on the fuzzy boundary between two ages: the end of the industrial age and the beginning of the Information Age. The Information Age is still in formation so it's still not too easy to know what it will look like. But we can say a few things about it. Increasing use of complex technology is transforming society and leading to even greater specialization of the work force. Many of the jobs that are in demand today didn't even exist 30 or 40 years ago (e.g.: computer programmers, medical imagers, nanotech engineers, futures traders). Society is more complex than ever before. The Information Era is also the era of globalization. Instantaneous and ubiquitous communications to any part of the world is now available for virtually no cost via the internet (including VoIP telephony, email, instant messaging, teleconferencing).

Yet for the most part we're still using the same forms of energy. But this cannot continue for too long because we will soon run out of oil, then uranium, then coal. Already many societies are investing more in the production of renewable forms of energy. Indeed, renewable forms of energy will replace the non-renewable sources of energy used during the industrial era.

What does this mean to me?
Well, you are living at a time of unprecedented technological change. There are many perils facing human civilization because the current world population cannot be sustained by the earth's limited resources. Pollution, resource depletion and climate change threaten the way we live and the prosperity we enjoy. Tough decisions and clever solutions are needed for us to continue living this way. But if we understand how we got here, and the nature of the challenges we face, we will be able to make the changes necessary to live in harmony with the earth and each other. Are you ready for this challenge?