Running out of stones

[George Thompson]

GAT is venturing out of the early-mid 19th century into the present day, an adventure which he always heartily regrets.

The 20th century at least gave us Louis Armstrong and Buster Keaton.  Can we hope for as much from the 21st?  Don't ask.

In any event, I saw in the NYTimes of midweek a remark that the Stone Age didn't end because they ran out of stones.  I immediately sensed a quotation, and so it has proven to be.

Checking the Proquest newspapers, I find the following:
The oil age is ending, not because we are running out of oil, but because we have better ideas. The Stone Age never ran out of stones either.
>From what I take to be either an op-ed piece or a column by Paul G. Hawken, headed ENDING THE OIL AGE, in the Boston Globe of March 18, 2001.  section H. page 8.  Mr. Hawken was calling on the Bush administration to do something effectual to curtail our reliance on oil; we all know, sadly, how far he was heeded.
"The Stone Age didn't end because they ran out of stones, and the fossil fuel age will not end because we run out of fossil fuel. It will end because we decide and muster the political will and the technological advances to move forward."
The person quoted is "KC Golden, a former aide to Mayor Paul Schell now working with the non-profit Climate Solutions".
>From an article headed NORTHWEST CALLED IDEAL FOR GREEN POWER PUSH in the Seattle Post - Intelligencer of April 14, 2004.  section B, page 2

This isn't in Fred Shapiro's quotation book.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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