The Two Extinction Sins

The title of this one was inspired by the old saying "The Seven Deadly Sins".

I classify the Two Extinction Sins as sloth and greed.

I was watching an extremely interesting program last night on the channel 'Quest' called 'World's Strangest'.  Last night it was 'World's Strangest Inventions' and in fact it rather renewed my faith in the human spirit to try and make this world a better place.

Take for instances the fabric that produces electricity from the heat produced by the human body.  As of yet it is still produced in small patches but even that is enough to power an MP3 player when it is stitched to the T-shirt you run in.  Think of the potential that has!  Clean renewable energy that keeps on coming as long as you are alive and warm.  In fact they could even set up power stations combined with gyms and pay people to be healthy and produce power at the same time.  A case of you go to work, put on the power fabric T-shirt and start running on the tread mill.  While you are running and becoming healthy the national grid is being powered by the heat you are giving off.  Sounds crazy but with a little more research it could be done.

However, one thing struck me with all the inventions, they are being made either in America or Japan.  Britain, once so proud of our Universities and our inventors is now content to sit on its butt and do sweet nothing to earn it's keep.  Oh wait, I forgot, umpteen thousand pounds of tax payers money went into discovering whether or not dog's have recognisable expressions.

One, I can't see how that is going to benefit anybody in the slightest.

Two, you could have asked any dog trainer in the world worth their salt and they would have told you the affirmative.  Scientific curiosity satisfied at a fraction of the price.

Britain has become fat, lazy and idol, willing to run the risks associated with fraking for oil because it makes money easily instead of putting our money into decent research such as the crystals, that when sliced nanotechnology thin, produce electricity when flexed.  Potential = weave them into cloth and turn them into the propellers for wind farms so even the structure of the wind turbine is producing electricity.

Will we research such alternatives?  My cynical side says probably not.  The British Empire stagnated and as of yet we haven't recovered from that inertia, allowing ourselves to let those who shout loudest and have the most money to impose their will, wills that seem bent only on gaining more money, regardless of the cost to others.  Greed and sloth in one nasty little package.