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The number of elements we use every day has been steadily increasing
over the last 10,000 years, with an especially sharp increase over the last
50 years or so. We use five times more elements than in primitive times and
twice as many as in medieval times.
ELEMENTS FROM ALL CORNERS OF THE WORLD GATHER IN OUR LIVING ROOMS.
The indium used in our LCD TVs is from China, and plastic and vinyl are from
oil drilled in the Middle East. (Oil is made up of carbon, mind you.) With the
recent spread of the Internet, our borders have opened up with the help of
copper and silicon dioxide (the elements that make up fiber-optic cables). Just
imagine all the photons and electrons flying around the world. It probably
wouldn’t be a lie to say that this is t