Instead of looking early, as we had the perfect in fossil fuels, innovation concentrated on exploiting that resource rather than (except with some exceptions like nuclear) looking to potentially viable new sources. Difficult to replace the viable, the marketable, with something farfetched, like ... well electric or wind when it's easier to be creative, rather than inventive, with the resource or medical practice or drug or food source like beef for a sustainable solution to need we are familiar with. There is need to turn our collective minds and attitudes and probably value criteria 30° if we are to get out of most the messes of legacy solutions.
Excellent observations.
The problem is: At the outset nobody could see the environmental catastrophe that would unfold.
Now that we can our entire society is underpinned by?
Fossil Fuel.
Instead of looking early, as we had the perfect in fossil fuels, innovation concentrated on exploiting that resource rather than (except with some exceptions like nuclear) looking to potentially viable new sources. Difficult to replace the viable, the marketable, with something farfetched, like ... well electric or wind when it's easier to be creative, rather than inventive, with the resource or medical practice or drug or food source like beef for a sustainable solution to need we are familiar with. There is need to turn our collective minds and attitudes and probably value criteria 30° if we are to get out of most the messes of legacy solutions.