The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World

by Charles C. Mann

The genetic differences between one chimpanzee and its neighbor on a single hillside in central Africa can be greater than those of two humans in central Asia and Central America. When scientists list mammals in order of their genetic diversity, humans are at the bottom, along with endangered species like wolverines and lynxes.

Every second, the sun bathes Earth with 172,500 terawatts of energy. (A terawatt—a trillion watts—is the biggest energy unit in common use.) About a third of this prodigious flow is promptly reflected into space, mainly by clouds. The leftover—roughly 113,000 terawatts, depending on cloud cover—is available for capture. All human enterprises together now use a bit less than 18 terawatts. In other words, the sun furnishes more than six thousand times the energy produced today by all of our power plants, engines, factories, furnaces, and fires combined.