Saving the World Before Breakfast: Keys for You to Invent & Innovate

Invention is getting an idea and making it work ... once.

But, invention is just the start. Innovation is doing the larger

long-term work of making that invention work reliably and

repeatedly-then succeeding at the harder task of convincing

people to use it. We need both invention and innovation.

People have thrived on this planet because they invented and

innovated around dangers. They faced dangers of cold and

dangerous predators such as lions and bears. They learned to

capture fire, maintain it, and even start it fresh for warmth, for

cooking more digestible food, and for chasing away those

predators. That was a series of inventions that people adopted

and developed as part of the much bigger set of energy

innovations. Those innovations led to furnaces, foundries,

cars, and civilization in general.

When wood grew scarce in the 1600s, people in Great Britain

built better stoves and got serious about mining coal. To better

mine the coal, they developed steam engines to pump water

from the mines. There were many steam engines, but James

Watt designed a much, much better steam engine. Watt, the

mechanic, and his entrepreneurial business partner, Mathew

Boulton, were an entrepreneurial team who birthed the

Industrial Revolution of steam railroads and factories.

21st Century new dangers include potential excessive

climate warming crop failures caused by that warming, and

exhaustion of certain key resources. Some of the innovations

needed are described in the forthcoming Saving the World

Before Breakfast: The Earth Alone Can Save Us by this author.

The quotes in this book are here to inspire you with the

wisdom and success of innovators who succeeded. A few

provide humor at those who scoffed at any chance of success.

Finally, they are included to warn you of the hard road ahead

lest you take on tasks that may be impossible, but to encourage

you if you do take that road.