Energy Canyons & The Mighty Mitochondria
Mr. Chairman, esteemed members of the board of trustees, honoured parents and guests, treasured colleagues, Alumni present (and in virtual absentia) Let us begin with gratitude:
There is a treasure in this tent.
A treasure that none of us alone can ever own but that is itself woven from our shared presence, commitment, conviction and celebration. I invite you to give earnest thanks in whichever way you best give thanks for the confluence of fortune and force that has granted us this blessed gathering of all the love, the light, the strength and the potential of Africa.
Members of the class of 2016. Good afternoon.
On a day like today, I’m loathe to say anything that overexcites your already stimulated egos, but you will always hold a special place for me. We arrived (back) in this honeydew home at the same time. These past two years, with all their wondrous difficulty, we’ve shared together. I have enjoyed each peak and valued every valley. Today, I am delighted to be addressing you with one, final, Dean’s talk.
I feel naked without my clicker but nonetheless; Thank you for paying attention (phones, laptops, daydreams — away); I will endeavour not to waste your time; I hope, now that you will no longer be a captive audience, that this conversation continues to blossom.
In spite of all protestations to the contrary, I will not, today, be speaking to you of bananas (which by the way are still very much under threat around the world). I want, instead, to talk to you about evolution.
First, let me cite my sources and say that much of what I’ll share today comes from a terrific science reporting podcast called RadioLab. I encourage you very much to give it a listen. just not right now though because I’m busy speaking. Let me also say that while being a fan of the wonders of science, I am by no means a scientist and much of what I will share will be absurdly simplified and probably wrong.
There is a concept in evolutionary history we’ll call energetic canyons. The idea is that, over the course of millennia, life arrives at junctures where the next stage of evolution requires more energy than the current forms of life are able to muster. In order for evolution to proceed, some radical change must occur that unlocks the potential available in the environment. It isn’t sufficient to keep doing things the same way; an entirely new paradigm must emerge. Think of a car that is at full-speed on the highest gear — the car cannot go any faster, and use energy more efficiently, without a higher gear being added.
The first energy canyon describes a mysterious occurrence in human evolution that transpired some 1 million years ago. The transition from homo habilis, our distant bipedal ancestors, to homo erectus; the first pre-humans to develop significantly larger brains. Big brains are great; they support all sorts of higher order thinking and presumably are responsible for this strange and wonderful thing called consciousness.
The thing about having a big brain, though, is that it requires a great deal of energy to make and sustain. Brain tissue consumes 20 times more energy than bone tissue. But where would all this energy come from. If you observe the primate relatives of our ancient ancestors, chimpanzees for instance, you’ll find they go about half the day consuming raw foods like tubers and raw meat and spend the other half of the day chewing and digesting them. In order to grow bigger brains, our ancestors needed to consume more nutrients, but even from the richest raw foods, there weren’t enough hours in the day to sustain the necessary development. Evolution was stuck in an energy canyon — we needed more energy in order to produce a larger brain, but we simply could not extract energy quickly enough.
Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist, proposes a hotly contested theory for how humans got out of that energy canyon. No — not bananas — although how magical would that be. Wrangham proposes that the answer instead is, Cooking. You see, fire, or heat, helps to break down foods and makes the nutrients in them more accessible to our digestion. So instead of chewing a raw side of meat for hours and then waiting hours more for your stomach to break it down — you cook it, enjoy it promptly, and have a good time digesting it while you sit quietly in pre-historic prep — basking in wonder at the universe.
Cooking, Wrangham proposes, was the single most important evolutionary invention. One million years ago, it is proposed, cooking propelled our ancestors out of the energy canyon into conscious life. With cooking in our repertoire, our teeth got smaller (as we didn’t need to chew so much) our brains got bigger and presumably we stopped worrying only about food (and the time needed to chew it) and began worrying more about things like technology, politics, love and, eventually, snapchat.
While Wrangham’s theory is still hotly contested, evidence recently unearthed at Wonderwerk Cave in the Northern Cape supports the idea that even as far back as 1 million years ago, our ancestors were learning to control fire. If this theory is true, it presents an eerie parallel to the story of Prometheus, who stole fire (knowledge) from the gods. The first tool for getting out of energy canyons is knowledge.
I’d like to bring your attention now to an energetic canyon that is somewhat more widely accepted, and a little further back in time. Long long before the first bowl of endomie was ever cooked, 4 billion years ago in fact, life was stuck in another energetic canyon, and another mysterious occurrence transpired.
Picture the planet, covered in oceans, teeming with life. Millions upon billions of single cellular organisms roiled in the oceans soaking up the sun and multiplying. These single-celled organisms could do magical things such as digesting thick oil or speaking to each other or event converting sunlight into energy. In order to do more of these tricks however, and especially in order to combine these tricks, these cells needed different sorts of DNA. The problem with DNA (much like a bigger brain), is that the more of it you have, the more energy you need in order to sustain and duplicate yourself. DNA is expensive. So life was stuck in a canyon of simplicity — for more complex life to emerge, more energy had to be captured, but more energy could not be captured without more complex life.
Things proceed in this fashion– oceans teeming with simple life, bacteria dreaming of doing more tricks but unable to muster the energy to learn those tricks — for at least 2 billion years. In fact, life very well could have stayed in this state; simple, uncomplicated, forever. Those of us lamenting Egypt’s swift and tragic exit from the world cup perhaps would have preferred this outcome. But then, something fantastic happened. At some point, one single cell organism, a bacterium, moved into another single cell organism, an archaeon. Now typically when this happens with cells, one of the two will destroy the other or they will both die. Cells are not great roommates. Not this time however.
The inside cell, we’ll call it the immigrant, was really good at making energy. The outside cell, the host, had really big ideas for what it wanted to achieve. They struck a magical balance. This is the theory of endosymbiotic evolution. From this moment was born, multicellular life. From that single microscopic event (and some scientists believe that this event happened only once in all the history of life on our planet) from this single event marriage, all complex life descended: fungus, plants, fish, lions, even Mr. Peter.
We are all descended from that single fateful act of immigration.
If anyone ever asks you what immigrants have done for the world — encourage them to consider if they’d rather return to being a single-celled organism.
I’d like to pause on this energetic canyon for a moment and introduce its star player. You see that ancient immigrant, the inside cell, was none other than the mitochondria. Students of biology will recognize this organelle as the ‘powerhouse of the cell’.
All of us, seated here today, carry inside us trillions of mitochondria. Every one of our cells is fuelled by these little descendants of bacteria which are a fundamental part of our being. In fact, they make up 40% of our biomass. 40% of you is immigrants!
The power of mitochondria comes from their ability to generate electrical charge. In fact, they are so energetic that if they were scaled up to human to size they would literally be covered in lightning. You are filled with invisible immigrant lightning!
As though that wasn’t exciting enough. Mitochondria also hold a beautiful piece of genetic history. One fact that supports this immigrant theory of evolution is that the mitochondria has its own separate DNA. This is why we can compare our mitochondria with that of all other complex life and find affinity. As a result of the reproductive process, this mitochondrial DNA, in humans, is only passed down through women. All human mitochondrial DNA, it would appear, comes from a single common female ancestor who lived approximately 100,000 years ago. To be clear, every single human being alive today has a literal common mother — she is called mitochondrial eve.
Why am I so focused on the mitochondria — well if nothing else I hope it encourages you men to respect, revere and enable women; they carry half the history, and all the energy of human life.
So, let’s review; 2 billion years ago, we had an energetic canyon with simple life. The brave immigrant mitochondria got us out of that canyon by making energy available inside the cell and propelling evolution into complex life. Cooperation, unlocked potential.
1 million years ago we had an energetic canyon until some genius (frankly probably also female) stole fire from the gods and figured out how to use heat to unlock nutrients. Entrepreneurial Knowledge, unlocked potential.
This brings me to the third and final energetic canyon I’d like to discuss; one that surrounds us today.
A few months ago, speaking at the Skoll World Forum, our co-founder Mr. Swa — excuse me — the right honourable Dr. Professor Mr. Swaniker — presented a startling challenge. By the end of this century, 2100, 40% of the world’s population will be African. He went on to stress that even sooner, by 2035, 6,000 days from now (6,035 to be precise) Africa will have the largest workforce in the world.
What Mr. Swaniker did not have time to mention but I think really drives this point home is that 1 in every 10 children born between 2050 and 2100 is going to be, not just African, not just West Africa, but Nigerian. 1 in 10. That is A LOT of Nigerians. Just imagine, every day, oluwa this and oluwa that, another john another david another Jason, another demi another Daniella another Mubarak — on and on and on and on. I’m tired just thinking of it. By 2050 Nigeria will surpass the United States in population size; becoming the third most populous country in the world. By 2100 you can expect 750 million Nigerians to be walking around; out of just over 4 billion Africans. That is a whole lot of people.
The causes of this demographic boom are obvious. By and large, humanity has figured out how to keep humans alive. We have vastly increased life expectancy and decreased infant mortality. Infants are staying alive, and they are going on to live longer. There is now IMMENSE human potential. African potential, and much, much more is on the way.
However, while our knowledge has increased potential; humanity has not figured out how to distribute opportunity (or energy) evenly across that potential. In fact, we seem to be traveling backwards, with the world (and Africa) becoming more and more unequal. If we don’t fix this equation — with radical rearrangements of money, power and society — this immense human potential will not only be wasted, it will become a liability.
Critically, unlike the other energy canyons that life has endured in the story of evolution, this canyon has a ticking clock. We don’t have millions of years to spend swimming about chewing leaves and waiting for genius. We have 17 years. 6,000 days. This is why I especially salute you, Cyril, for the clarity and focus with which you are pursuing a promising revolution.
This, my friends, is to be the great challenge of your leadership. To enable this century to truly be the African century; to unlock the potential of our people and thus, bring humanity out of the canyon.
Does this sound like a tall order? Are you scrambling for ideas?
Take with you the lessons of the mitochondria.
Remember that transformational change is enabled by small things. The mitochondria is not celebrities; in fact many of you probably didn’t know you were walking around filled with them.
Remember as well that the ful potential of our continent, and indeed humanity, lies first and foremost in the full and final liberation of women.
Remember as well that you are surrounded by a powerful network of enablers. Remember that you have the passion, the wit, the entrepreneurship of Shorshor Burgesson. Remember that you have the patience, the diligence, the excellence of John Kariuki. Remember that you have the hilarious creativity of Semphere and Samad and the insightful organization of Mathlabeli and Winnie. Remember Rati’s laughter. Remember Akoua’s banana science. Remember Timi’s magic, both literal and figurative. Remember just how tall Dokata is and just how hard he works. Remember Cynthia’s diligence and Flower’s insistence.
Remember most of all that each one of you is filled with 40 trillion bolts of lightning, immense and magical potential. Each one of you a mitochondrion in the great, rising, heaving belly of African potential.
Remember that you have work to do; and 1 billion people watching as you do it.
Remember finally that there are almost 1,000 ALAians ahead of you, already doing this work; and thousands who will come behind you to follow in your wake.
Remember that this home will always be here, should you need a place to rest and become re-inspired.
Graduates, thank you for the leadership that will guide us out of this canyon; thank you as well, for listening to me speak this one final time.
Good luck.
This commencement address was delivered to members of ALA’s class of 2016* at their graduation ceremonies on June 22nd 2018.
*ALA classes are identified by their year of entry, not graduation.
