by Dave Hughes

Created on: July 06, 2009   Last Updated: July 11, 2009

Since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the United States endeavored to become the global leader in every single technological field. From farm equipment that secured its place as the world's food basket to the space race against the old Soviet Union, the United States dedicated its best minds and all of its resources toward achieving and maintaining the top spot in every industry where superior technology mattered.

Superiority of industrial development depended almost as much on speed as it did talent. Bright minds and bold attitudes drove the juggernaut that commanded huge amounts of investment capital with the promise of swift and plentiful returns. The Depression delayed progress for a while, but nothing could curb the steady pace of increasing industrialization.

At the same time, the automotive giants, led by Henry Ford and his assembly line concept, could reasonably promise the general public an individual means of transportation. Coupled with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fossil fuel, the automobile vastly enhanced the freedom of the working multitude, something that public transportation, despite its best efforts, could not deliver.

With industrial development came the need for energy in the form of electricity, both to power manufacturing efforts and to provide creature comforts to urban areas rapidly expanding to house the increasing work force necessary to man the many plants engaged in making more now than ever before.

Speed was the watchword for the industrial development of the United States. The country set a pace for the rest of the world that reflected in our use of energy in every available form. As we grew, so did our need for energy. In retrospect, the country showed a complete disregard for the environmental impact that our philosophy of "progress at any price" was having on the ecosystem and how costly our attitude would become.

With progress, the United States, in its brief history, had become the economic powerhouse of the planet. Countries looked to the US as a model of what could be accomplished in terms of national wealth and the personal freedom that came with that wealth, and many sought to copy that effort regardless of any consequence, convinced that any troubles encountered along the way to success, would prove trivial and easily reconciled once wealth could be applied to the problem.

The entire world began to follow the environmentally filthy footsteps of the US.

In short order, many countries established themselves as

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