1. Russia is stable. But maybe not. We tend to forget that Russia, like the USSR it was a part of, is an empire composed of a dominant ethnic minority and subordinate nationalities and ethnicities. It could be that the breakup of the USSR is just the beginning. Further disintegration is a possibility, and a harsh economic blow might do the trick.

2. China will respect the borders of its neighbors. But maybe not. If the US is forced to give up its world-straddling presence, it will leave a power vacuum which Japan and the EU are uninterested in filling, and Russia is incapable of it. What would tempt China to go adventuring? The collapse of Russia into warring factions might do the trick. Siberia, which isn't Russian but a territory occupied by Russian conquerors, would be a glorious prize for the Chinese Revolution. It would provide vast resources to a populous nation that sorely needs them. Admittedly, there's the little problem of nukes to worry about, but if Russia is plunged into a civil war, China might be able to figure a way to do it without triggering a holocaust.

3. Al-Queda Hates Our Freedoms, which is why they attacked us. But maybe not. It could be that their whole objective was to encourage us into adventures against Muslim nations, which in turn would stoke Muslim dissatisfaction with secular government in the region, dissatisfaction with borders drawn by outsiders, and, of course, dissatisfaction with meddling outsiders. Like anyone else, Muslims want to chart their own destinies, and to be saddled with puppet governments and forced secularism and foreign occupying powers is a boil on their butt. The long-range objective of this strategy? To throw down secular governments and stand up a new united, fundamentalist Caliphate. And swat Israel, but that might only be an afterthought. Israel is a symptom of Muslim weakness. Muslim strength is the real goal.

4. Climate Change Won't Be Catastrophic. But maybe not. I'm turning Jacob's approach to this one on its head. The conventional wisdom - not the view held by climatologists and biologists, but the general public - is that climate change is slow. It's mostly affecting cold places. Heck, some places may even change for the better. So maybe it won't be so bad. Nobody's talking about the seas boiling, after all. There is so much science contradicting this uninformed viewpoint that it's hard to know where to begin. I think I'll just make one point and leave it. That point is this: there is no doubt, absolutely none, that a mass extinction is underway on a scale seen only perhaps 4 or 5 times before in the Earth's geological history. As a species perched uncomfortably atop an ever-shrinking pyramid of Earth life, we will be exposed and vulnerable.

I'll close with a comment about Jacob's challenging the common wisdom about fossil fuels. He's right - sort of. There are hundreds of years of fossil fuels still in the ground at current burn rates. Cheap, sweet crude will be the first to become scarce, it appears. But there's lots of other fossil fuels. Especially methane and coal. The bottom line is that we could keep burning for a long, long time if we thought it was smart to do. The question we should be asking is not, are we running out? But, is it smart to keep burning the stuff? Sure it is, if you ignore what science is telling us about climate change, mass extinctions, and the effect of pollution on our health (and health care costs). It doesn't look so smart if you factor those things in.

We have not yet moved away from fossil fuels because we have no real economically-feasible alternatives to base an industrial civilization on (yet). Cheap energy is not just a nice-to-have for an industrial civilization, it's the starting point for it. Choosing an expensive alternative means serious retrenchment: less transportation, less manufacturing, less everything. That's unappealing; it's hard enough to create jobs for everyone without reverting to a less industrialized state. So I don't think we will make much headway on getting off of fossil fuels until equally cheap alternatives are widely available.

We'd better get cracking on that.

Urgelt, I like this game. What's really exciting is to imagine what new smart lifestyles could be created within the constraints and challenges posed by climate change and the scarcity of a clean enough fuel at least till we make a major breakthrough which to fill up the gaps left by the scarcity of sweeter crude and the added climate constraints is at least 3-4 decades away. What makes the game all the more interesting is that unless we become very smart at much higher efficient and effective use of our present fuel supply to discover, tap and distribute those fuel sources - solar, wind, geothermal or may be some cosmic source with further inter-stellar expeditions, we may just well fall short.

The first big challenge is how to overcome obscurantists like Jacob from abusing their influential positions?

You'll play?

Why?

Climate change is already happening, and effects are as usual catastrophic, given that when you erode complex systems incrementally, those systems eventually adjust catastrophically. And yes, that's conventional wisdom, based on centuries of observation. Jakie thinks he can profitably question it because he profits from stirring up anger. Fuck him.

We will, in any case, have to adjust to living in a changing world, and a lot of the changes will not be happy. I am less upset about economic adjustments than about what it will be like living in a world without bats, or frogs, or bees, or permafrost, or most of the current arctic large mammals, and a long list of other losses and changes.

Why don't you three get together and start a magazine? You're good.

I share your enthusiasm, Chandra. We appear to be on the verge of some breakthroughs in alternative energy. One start-up in Hawaii is experimenting with very large kites which generate electricity. On paper, the idea looks as though it might deliver electricity less expensively than coal. There are a lot of issues to work through, though: control systems, how to handle bad weather, keep planes away from the wires, etc. It would work best in low population areas, probably, which means we'll need a heck of a robust grid system to move power around. (We probably needed that anyway.) Improvements in solar are just around the corner. I expect the efficiency of solar panels to at least double within 5 years, based on laboratory discoveries just in the last year. Think about solar panels that can generate electricity at night, and solar panels that can capture a much wider range of light frequencies than current panels can manage. Both should be coming to market soon. The most critical choke-point in our way is battery technology. If we could economically build a battery that stores as much or more energy as a tank of gas for about the same weight, we'd be over the tech hump and into reaping big economic rewards. We aren't nearly there yet; the closest we can come is the energy equivalent of 2-3 gallons of gasoline in a much heavier battery array. Primitive. Everyone that can do it has jumped with both feet into battery research; the potential payoff is enormous. Thus far only small improvements have emerged. Even with primitive batteries, though, short-range electric cars are poised to take off, and so are electric-assist bicycles and electric motorcycles. Perhaps the strangest and most exciting concept comes from Segway (in collaboration with GM), which has completed work on a prototype two-wheel electric vehicle with a range of 25-35 miles, can go 25-35 mph, has a range of around 30-40 miles. The "thing" - it isn't a car, it's more like a wheelchair on steroids than anything else I can think of - seats two, offers better visibility to the driver than many compact cars, and has a turn radius of zero (it can spin in place). Like the original Segway, it automatically balances itself on its two wheels. They were tooling around NYC this past week in this thing. Cool, but they aren't ready to say when they might offer one for sale. And it doesn't look like there's a trunk. Me, I'm just about to take delivery of a custom-built long wheel base electric cargo bicycle. Putting out in the neighborhood of 90 ft-lbs of torque at full throttle, it can haul a rider and 200 lbs of cargo up most hills, pedaling optional. With the trailer I have for it, I'll be able to haul any conceivable amount of groceries - certainly more than a grocery cart can hold. It tops out at about 26 mph with a light load. Just the thing for most shopping trips under 5 miles, or longer recreational rides. Fuel costs? Pennies. If the new Segway is cool at 300 lbs, how cool is a cargo vehicle that weighs about 120 lbs (with trailer), hauls more cargo than the Segway, and looks and rides almost like an ordinary bicycle? (It looks basically like a long mountain bike with a trailer hitch and a box strapped to the rear rack. Most people wouldn't look twice unless it's pulling a loaded trailer.) America does seem to be headed for economic retrenchment, and I think we won't emerge from it until we have mastered cheap alternative forms of energy. Fortunately, that, too, is a game anyone can play. All it takes is imagination.

Urgelt, Thanks for the low down on the alt. energy scene. We indeed need to apply our imagination. One, we must rephrase the energy supply that we want and care about as "clean energy" (and not as alt. energy) and what we want to phase out as "dirty energy". Two, the two biggest untapped sources of clean energy, IMI (In My Imagination) are human power and energy efficiency. Both have a super ROI of producing something from something negative beyond the initial transition cost, which according to sound economics, must be factored into the obsolete or depleting energy cost.

Recycled energy that also profitably eliminates GHGs, as Tom Casten talks about is one example. (www.eenews.net/tv/transcript/­785 ). I have conceived of a Transport System called MetroLITE that gainfully allows flexible and measured use of "human power" (www.cv2systems.com/Home/mobil­ityxs ) for good health and fitness at the same time transporting for short and/or feeder trips, eliminating GHGs as well as eliminates medical bills both from healthy lifestyles and cleaner environment.

I am really keen to take up Crowe's suggestion seriously and start a web magazine in collaboration with you and oxboggle to start with. Thanks Crowe for the idea. We can certainly do a much better job than Jackie of better fact-finding and truthful reporting. :)

If you would like to contact me directly, my mail id is cvikash@yahoo.com Mobile: +91 9008266336 . I am currently based in Bangalore in India but soon plan to move to US for better opportunities.