"It is easy to get caught up in the heady whirlwinds of modernity. We have accomplished amazing feats in these past few centuries, and our extrapolative minds envision a continued acceleration. Given that our life span overlaps only a portion of the tale, it is easy to lose the context that our boom (the Industrial Revolution and what followed) is almost entirely due to fossil fuels. This energy surge in turn powered a surge in material access and economic activity (and human population) in what is perhaps fittingly described as a fireworks show."