Rising proudly at over 7500 feet high ( 2300 meters ), Inca citadel of Machu Picchu was so inaccessible that the Spanish conquerors were never able to found it. But in 1911 Yale historian Hiram Bingham rediscovered it, and between 1912 and 1915, directed the National Geographic Society in a series of expeditions that ended in many archaeological finds that were transferred to Yale University, allegedly with the permission of Peruvian president, Augusto Legu.
Chemical and biological warfare are not an invention of the 20th century.
Solon (638-559 BC) used a strong purgative, the herb hellebore, in the siege of Krissa. During the 6th century BC, the Assyrians poisoned enemy wells with rye ergot. In the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), the Spartans flung sulfur and pitch at the Athenians and their allies. In the Middle Ages, besiegers used the bloated and dripping bodies of plague victims as readymade “dirty bombs”.
In 1346, during its siege of Kaffa (present day Feodosia in Crimea), the Tartar army suffered an outbreak of the Plague. They hurled the corpses of their infected dead over the city walls and into the city’s water wells. The resulting epidemic led to the city’s surrender. It is widely believed that people afflicted with the horrendous disease fled the place and started the Black Death pandemic which consumed at least one third of Europe’s population within a few years. Russian troops adopted the same tactic against Sweden in 1710.
Smallpox was another favorite. Francisco Pizarro (1476-1541) gave South American natives clothing items deliberately contaminated with the variola virus. During the French and Indian wars in North America (1689-1763), blankets used by smallpox victims were given to American Indians. General Jeffery Amherst (1717-1797) gifted Indians loyal to the French with smallpox-contaminated bedspreads during the French and Indian War of 1754 to 1767. An epidemic broke among the Native American defenders of Fort Carillon and they lost it to the English.
All in all, we must accept the fact that we will not be able to have our gas and eat our corn muffins too. There are also other crops which can be used to derive the Ethanol fuel, such as soybeans, sugar beet, raw sugarcane, etc.. The fact still remains…the choice will be gas for our automobiles and along with this will eventually come a vast depletion of one or more of our key domestic and export crops. It does not mean that this scenario will eventually come to be, but without other renewable energy fuels developed in tandem, such as the Hydrogen based fuel cell to assist the Ethanol fuel approach, this could lend itself to some key food staple shortages. The final question may be…”Do we prefer wheels beneath
our feet, or food in our stomachs.” Common sense tells us that at this point in time, we must proceed with great caution. Granted, the very large south American country of Brazil has embarked on their Ethanol program for approximately a decade now, with fairly good results and have enjoyed the weaning from foreign oil. Will it ever be 100% remains to be seen.
Solar energy is one possible approach being tinkered with to produce Hydrogen in order to power our future power plants and it is hoped that electricity, which now helps to deplete our fossil fuels will help us to deliver the fuel needed to produce power for advanced “Fuel Cells” being developed to power the automobiles and trucks, etc. of the future.
Unfortunately, producing Hydrogen by using solar energy electricity is very inefficient. This being said, solar energy is fully renewable and therefore must be considered. Along with the Hydrogen fuel from Solar approach comes recent announcements of some breakthroughs holding great promise using Solar to economically produce the hydrogen needed for fuel cells for both the automobile and our industrial needs and not using up all of our food resources in the process.
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