INNOVATIONS THAT GET NO RESPECT
We now have more than 4 million miles of paved roads. Next time you’re stopped in traffic, think grateful thoughts about how you’re not stalled in sheep, goat, horse, and cow manure. Of course people aren’t the only things that need transporting. So does oil, gas, and electricity. Here’s another part of our infrastructure that, like roads, we don’t think much about. Or don’t think much about until the oil spills, the gas line blows up, and the electricity goes out. Then we get furious at the people trying to supply us with the things we want, even though we want so much of those things that leaks, explosions, and power outages are inevitable. Yet if the people trying to supply us with oil, gas, and electricity try even harder and want to build more pipelines and high-voltage transmission towers we get really furious, scream “NIMBY!,” and start blogging on the Internet about how the things we want cause cancer. And maybe they do. But do we want to be treated for cancer in a hospital without lights, heat, or air-conditioning? The part of the taken-for-granted infrastructure that fascinates me most is the electrical grid. So many people think phone poles and power lines are unsightly. News for you folks, in the dark everything is “unsightly.” Don’t bury the power lines, lift them up on high, to remind us of our blessings.
roads were so good that some are still in use, such as the Via Appia from Rome to Brindisi. Although it wasn’t so choked with Fiats during the reign of the Emperor Trajan. Roads aren’t exactly an innovation, but they are a re -innovation. During the Middle Ages, people forgot how to make a road. How do you forget how to make a road? Beats me. It’s only half as hard as making water available – no smart thinking required, just hard work. You put down big stones, cover them with smaller stones, cover these with little-bitty stones, dig drainage ditches and... Road trip to Brindisi! But people managed to forget anyway. Or they got confused and began to think, “You put down big cow flops, cover them with smaller horse apples, and cover these with little-bitty sheep and goat pellets.” I have just described roads all over the world until the late 18th century. The “improved roads” built for the next hundred years were, in fact, not much of improvement on Roman roads. We’d call these roads “off-road” and put our SUVs into 4WD. In 1900, pavement of any kind was limited to city streets... The U.S. had just 10 miles of paved country roads.
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It’s only half as hard as making water available – no smart thinking required, just hard work.
90 | September 2017
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