1.2 How We Depend on Welded Products Every Day
Douglas Rupik, M.Ed., JIW
Welding and the Familiar Items We Use
It is perhaps easiest to make a blanket statement that practically everything we touch is metal or has been produced or transported on equipment made from welded metal. To illustrate this point:
Imagine what it would be like to live in a world without welding or metal objects. You would not rely on an alarm clock to wake up in the morning because electricity would not be available without a wire. If you got up before sunrise, you would need a candle for light. You would not have running water because there would be no metal or plastic plumbing. (Why no plastic? Plastic is a petroleum product, and we would not be able to drill or refine petroleum without metals.) You would have to rely on a well or nearby lake or stream for water, requiring you to use a clay pitcher or wood bucket to carry the water to your house. No indoor plumbing also means using an outhouse. Your home would probably be heated by a wood fire since an electric or gas/oil furnace would not exist without metal. In the summer, you would have no air conditioning.
You would get dressed in clothes made from animal skins or natural fibers such as wool, cotton, or hemp woven by hand on a wood-framed loom because synthetic fibers such as nylon, polyester, polyester fleece, etc., would not exist without petroleum. Without modern production methods, which rely on metals, you might only have one set of clothes to wear. With no spandex or other elastics, fashions would be much different, to say the least.
Your breakfast would be either local fresh food (long-distance transportation on trucks or trains would not exist without metal), or foods preserved by salting, pickling, or drying since you would not have a freezer (unless you had access to ice from a frozen body of water or a glacier). There would be no canned goods whatsoever (remember, no metals).
Your transportation to work or school would be either a pack animal (horse, donkey, camel, or sled dog team), a wood or skin-covered boat, or you would walk. Any bridges would be made from wood or stone—significant concrete structures require steel rebar for strength, and so bridges would not exist in the form we recognize today.
All of this time, you would not have access to music, videos, or social media because the cell phones, TVs, and computers used to listen and watch such media are all composed of welded metals.
Modern society, with all its comforts, depends on metals for its very existence. While many people in the world may live in different conditions than you, very few people live without any of the benefits brought by metals.
The Hidden Impact of Welding
As we read previously, a world without metals would actually have left us in the Stone Age. Our modern world is built on commerce, the buying and selling of goods and services. Shipping, agriculture, communication, manufacturing of durable goods, our built environment, an