The 20th century saw the United States dominating the world as perhaps no nation ever had before. From 1900 to 2000, the US drove commerce, culture, technology, politics and dozens of other fields.

Geographic determinism had something to do with it.

In 1902, the Spindletop oil gusher became the largest source of oil in the world. And, with a few glitches in the 1970s, it meant 100 years of nearly free energy for the US. Fossil fuels were portable, flexible and inexpensive. They could not only power cars and tanks (a giant shortage for the Germans in WWII was access to oil) but be turned into plastics and fertilizer as well.

Spindletop was mostly luck. The luck of geography and a bit of effort.

The next century won’t be determined by geography.

We’re going to be paying the price for a century of cheap fossil fuels for the rest of our lifetimes, and the future is going to be driven by two things: technological advances in solar (and other renewables) as well as national attitudes and actions that lead to resilience and innovation in the face of climate change.

That’s as local as we make it.