A Greatest Human Invention: Is it Yet Unimagined?

One of the hallmarks of humanhood is innovation—more keenly so in modern times. Our forebears were without even the convenience of using wheels until a mere five and one-half millennia ago. In intervening years since, though, a succession of what-if thinkers have wowed their contemporaries with evolutionary leaps. During this wink in cosmic time—and for better or worse—our species has managed to reinvent this pale blue orb we call home.

Early on, centuries elapsed between breakthroughs. But in recent decades the crescendo of novel devices has been breathtaking. Many who now seek to find meaning in milestones might be attempting to determine the greatest invention—the most consequential.

Likewise, aspiring inventors of our time are spurred on—a yet-to-be-determined most prodigious mark of creativity may be out at imagination’s horizon. The eventual accolade could go to the idea deemed to have done the most to help this present phase end well—having tweaked our trajectory from disaster to deliverance.  

Our present-day predicament may be akin to the gathered-around-the-kitchen-table game called Jenga in which, if during a player’s move a precarious stack topples, he or she loses. Likewise, perhaps all those ah-has over the centuries—eg., the printing press and plow, steel and engines, computers and compasses, clocks and calendars, concrete, vaccines, batteries, refrigeration, air travel, etc., may conclude as a long exercise in futility if we humans blunder at our present pivotal step. 

For many of us, all seems on the line. For our inventors and other visionaries, converging are many colossal challenges, including:

• We must re-wild our oceans and landscapes, 
• We must sequester trillions of tons of carbon from oceans and atmosphere back into the earth, 
• We must reinvent agriculture and the human diet; reverse today’s pandemic of preventable diseases,
• We must replenish soil, 
• We must rescue Earth’s myriad native ecosystems from toxins and invasive species, 
• We must switch from fossil fuel to renewable energy, 
• We must solve our freshwater crisis,
• We must somehow rid the world of billions of tons of plastic waste. 

Luckily, these crises are related—our work to solve any of these will assist victories on the other fronts. Unluckily, failure in any of these realms might doom our descendants to a hardly habitable planet. Luckily, for the human race to win, governments may need only adjust economic incentives; unluckily, it seems many believe it should be only the other guy who should “take the hit”; and, unluckily, not mentioned in this long list of crises is our most fundamental challenge: our present human population number is hardly sustainable.

Experts often tell us that—fortunately—we already have the tools and technologies to begin; that “taking a hit” really means letting go of stifling beliefs and practices. Aren’t transitions to maintainable forms of human fulfillment—that we often bitterly resist—inevitable? It seems those who begin to retrain first will have a leg up as new and exciting opportunities arise.

We are assured that the now barreling-out-of-control freight train we call change will be leaving a gaping gouge in much to which we cling or hold dear. We are assured these days that it’s as silly to think we might slow a cosmic pendulum’s arc as it is to imagine reversing this accelerating rampage. Meanwhile, as people generally take sides in the dualisms of our times and either infuriate or ignore, optimists calmly assert that instead we might jump aboard and add our hands to those steering toward hope, holistic oneness and communion. 

These optimists, it seems, imagine the train’s momentum as unveiling myriad opportunities for collaboration and selfless teamwork. They grasp that inroads in the fields of genetics, soil science, big data, artificial intelligence, nutrition, the internet of things, etc., might carry us to a moment of synchrony, whereupon, glimmers of the greatest human invention will appear at the horizon.

Already, there are indications of a distant dawning. Three of these are: the work at Yellowstone National Park to save Yellowstone Lake’s cutthroat trout and ecosystem, the exploration to save native pollinators, and the emerging science that may eat away at the world’s micro-plastics problem.

Ecosystems, such as that of the Yellowstone Lake region, involve thousands of intricate and interdependent relationships. It is often difficult to determine which relationships and species are most critical but, within this region, cutthroat trout are known to be key. A decade ago, these fish were being decimated by an invasive lake trout species (introduced by humans), and the entire ecosystem was crashing. Cutthroat trout abide close to the water’s surface and are therefore an important food source for grizzly bears, birds of prey, and other wildlife. The larger, invasive, bottom-dwelling trout species were rising from the depths to devour the cutthroat, leaving Yellowstone lake’s native species to die off or seek food elsewhere. 

To the rescue has been a selfless, enlightened collaboration. Thanks to funding from private donors, the efforts of Yellowstone National Park Service, the nonprofit Yellowstone Forever and a team of researchers from Michigan State University, the Yellowstone Lake ecosystem is returning to vibrancy. Among other tactics, summertime use of gill nets that hook only the invasive trout species has allowed the cutthroat an upper fin. Over 3.4 million of the lake trout species have been removed since 1994. This use of gill nets seems to have turned the tide for the cutthroat at about 2010-2012. 

Having co-evolved with the land-dwelling species of the region, cutthroat are not only integral to the vitality of the lake but they migrate to spawn more than 30 miles into the Upper Yellowstone region, impacting every creature and characteristic of this complex network.  One of the methods of monitoring their numbers is for fisheries staff to count cutthroat in the thoroughfare streams during annual spawning runs. Leading up to the 2010 cutthroat count, scientists were alarmed to find steadily fewer cutthroat present in these backcountry streams. Presently, however, large numbers and sizes of this distinctive breed again populate these streams.

The Yellowstone region is just one of a myriad on-the-ropes components of Earth’s web of life where a greatest human invention may emerge. Also within life’s fabric are complex plant/pollinator networks. These sets of relationships can be fragile to the point of co-evolved pairings of specific bee or moth or butterfly species with flowers of a specific plant. In many cases, if one species is lost, equally devastated is the other of this dancing pair. 

Ironically, likewise, today’s beekeeper industry—with its honeybees—has co-evolved with umpteen varieties of today’s monoculture crops. Production of a high percentage of society’s favorite foods is now threatened by honeybee colony collapse. 

However, in most ecosystems, our honeybees are an invasive species. Causes for alarm are reports that with our industrialized pollination system of trucking millions of hives from crop-site to crop-site around the country, we disrupt the structure and functionality of natural pollination networks. Our troublesome relationship with plant pollinators is emblematic of our food production problem in general.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, pollinators are essential to the production of 87% of the leading food crops worldwide. A greatest human invention might be one that benefits from pollination lessons-learned and give back supremacy to native bees and butterflies, who are usually much better at their pollination work than honey bees. Likely this would require a step forward and away from modern monoculture, its pesticides, and its itinerate fleet-loads of honeybee hives.

Another of today’s tragic ironies relates to our obsession with “purified” bottled water—our attempt to avoid water-borne contaminants and toxins. The upshot is that billions of un-recycled plastic water bottles now cover the globe. This is part of the reason we now have a planetary residue of “micro plastics,” which is a much more serious human health hazard than merely gulping tap water. 

Our reliance on throw-away plastic has created a waste crisis. More than 8 billion metric tons of plastic—including water bottles—have been produced since the 1950s, according to The Guardian. A vast majority of it breaks down into tiny—often microscopic—shards, which pollute the air we breathe, food we eat, water we drink, the streams, rivers and oceans, and our remaining soil. These tiny bits are in everyone’s body, causing detrimental health effects. These microscopic bits are so ubiquitous that they have been found now on Everest’s highest peak. On our present trajectory, at some point, all plastic will have broken down to these shards and scientists warn this micro-plastic threatens a “near permanent contamination of the natural environment.”

But wait, there may be good news: researchers have discovered a marine microbe that eats away at plastic. Potentially, at scale, this bacteria—a pseudomonas strain that seems capable of thriving solely on plastic—could cause our Everests of plastic trash to slowly break down, become sequestered carbon and—conceivably—help regenerate soil. Yes, the highest honor may go to an invention that provides primacy to bacteria that have a ravenous appetite for trash, and is free of other gluttonies—minimizing the potential for yet another catastrophic backfire.

There are numerous examples of attempts to restart natural processes and ecosystems that have fallen short and become yet another disaster. Meanwhile, today’s crises appear more existential each day. We are tempted to try again—no matter the narrow odds of success. Accurately, we can blame prior failures on naïveté and top-down planning; present technologies are more likely informed by past missteps and may prioritize genuine, enlightened conservation. 

Focusing again and searching for hope at the horizon, we see that today’s challenge has dual aspects: innovation could possibly do a seemingly impossible reboot of nature, yes, but the greatest human invention may come, instead, as a re-seeding of what it means to be a human being. 

A look back to a prior age and stage may provide insights and infuse hope. Most Americans learn early-on that Benjamin Franklin was one of the world’s foremost inventors. What’s often overlooked, however, is the idea set forth by Walter Isaacson, a biographer, who proposed that Franklin’s greatest invention was the person he became. 

A youthful Franklin planted seeds of character and consciousness within. Today, inspired by Franklin’s flowering, we might gather the seeds of our times—perhaps kernels of wisdom falling from a fading flower? Among these seeds, there may be one that, once germinated, will develop into an ideal human race, one that has relented its prior greed and lust for power, has forgotten tribal tendencies and advanced beyond our age of disinformation. Instead, the newfound civilization will treasure Franklin-inspired problem solving and Yellowstone Forever-informed teamwork. 

Especially if this evolved species arises in time to help preserve the natural world, wouldn’t this be the greatest human invention? If so, for those present, the entire enterprise will appear immensely satisfying. We or they will awaken to having participated in the completion of yet another sway of the cosmic pendulum.