Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think

by Peter H. Diamandis

Imagine being forced to rely on burning poor-grade wood, dung, or crop waste to cook, suffering the effects of the potentially fatal toxic fumes given off by this fuel. Imagine being desperately ill and turned away from a clinic because it has no electricity and can’t offer even the simplest treatment. Imagine your friends living under the shadow of life-threatening disease because there’s no vital vaccine, due to a lack of refrigeration. Imagine if you or your partner were pregnant and went into labor at night and had no light, no pain relief and no way of saving you or the baby if there were complications. Mercy describes herself as part of the new-breed “cheetah generation” of Africans who are fast-moving, entrepreneurial leaders working to snatch back the continent from the jaws of poverty, corruption, and poor governance—three issues she believes could be changed significantly with more access to energy. “Consider the women and children who spend hours every day searching for increasingly scarce energy resources. They are at risk from wild animals and sometimes rape. And once they start burning biomass, the acrid smoke causes serious lung disease and turns kitchens into death traps. Children and their mothers are most at risk, choking, retching, and gasping. More people die from smoke inhalation than from malaria. Indoor air pollution is linked to respiratory diseases such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and lung cancer. Women and children who spend long periods every day a...