The End of Fire

The end of fire refers to our transition to a post carbon world, a world where energy is not combusted or burned in the traditional sense - hence the end of fire.  It refers as well to the human epoch beginning with human kind's ability to make, apply and control fires to the present time.  We no longer have the luxury of merely combusting fuels to derive thermal energy, but need to move beyond combustion to a more efficient and lower carbon intensive society.   This transition is not only necessary from an environmental perspective, as our environmental devastation is impacting the very means and basis of our survival, when considering the entire human family around the planet.  

The transition to a post carbon world also speaks to a much broader and more significant transition, a transition in how our human species structures our institutions and our perspectives on the basis for life and our relationship to the planet.  This more significant transformation, seen in other cultures across the window of time, speaks to the integrative nature between ourselves and our life sustaining environment.  It is necessary for us to view ourselves as fully integrated participants in natural cycles, not as separate opportunists, scavenging what we can to our own advantage.