Energized - Rooftop Revolution - page 71

CHAPTER 6
Energized
People have always been good at imagining the end of the world, which is
much easier to picture than the strange sidelong paths of change in a world
without end.
— REBECCA SOLNIT, FROM HOPE IN THE DARK: UNTOLD HISTORIES,
WILD POSSIBILITIES
J OURNEYBACKWITHMETO1989,TOTHE S OUTHERN H IGH landsofPapuaNewGuinea.I'm
19 years old. I'm bird watching and bumming around this magnificent land, working as a
trekkingguideamongthecountry'sindigenouspeople.AroadcalledtheHighlandsHigh-
way, which had been built just a year before, snakes through forest, where clouds of but-
terflies explode from fragrant bushes and stunning birds of paradise display each evening
as the dirt strip winds down into Tari. I've spent the past three months hiking around the
valley, stopping at each village along the way to meet the people.
BigOilcompanies,ledbyBP,hadrecentlycometothevalleytodrill,withlittleregard
for how their work would affect the inhabitants. Their presence ignited a Wild West-like
frenzy in the region.
Let us in and we'll give you electricity was part and parcel of the promise of these
Western companies.
Electricity. Thepeoplehadheardofit—itsmysterious,magicalpower.Theywantedit.
Some of them grew obsessed with the prospect of such technology and the fortune they
thought it could bring.
Crazy stuff was happening. In one part of the valley, an incredible landslide had oc-
curred a few years before. Half of an enormous mountain collapsed, revealing a glittering
field of gold. A gold rush ensued. One local kid found nuggets the size of his thumbnails
and used one to buy a Toyota Land Cruiser in the nearest town, hundreds of kilometers
away, though he had no idea how to drive. He ended up driving it off a road and killing
himself. This was a people who had never seen a wheel until the first airplane landed
among them in the 1930s. This was a Stone Age culture catapulted into the Space Age.