Early Television and What We Can Learn From It
Today is the 90th anniversary of the first demonstration of the television, and thus an opportunity for me to tell this little story.
The technology of TV was developed before humankind could figure out how to use it, and thus the early days were not too different from those of radio. TV producers would put a man with a microphone reading the news or a script from “The Lone Ranger” in front of a camera. The viewer would have essentially the same experience he had with radio; the only difference was the minor enhancement of being able to see the announcer.
Many years later, people started to wonder: isn’t there something more we can do with this? Then began our current era of dramatic and comedic teleplays, live sports and entertainment broadcasts and the like.
There is an analogy here to the solution to some of our current problems, e.g., clean energy and the environment. Yes, we have an old paradigm that continues to guide our thinking (fossil fuels). But all of a sudden we also have threat of catastrophic climate change, ocean acidification and loss of biodiversity—and we have solar PV sold at $0.56/W and wind energy sold at $0.025/kWh.
A business-as-usual approach to energy in 2016 is as myopic as training a TV camera on a radio announcer.
We’ve been given a gift. Now it’s up to us to put it to use.
