I treat your remarks with great respect, Don, though we probably disagree about nuclear power in general. I am much less optimistic about what we have learned from what we have lost -- my students, for example, assume that today's wilderness is the same as what was lost. They have no idea. People use today as the norm, and as today deteriorates, they use that as the new norm.

How much are we learning as a society? We have approximately 30,000 chemicals in circulation, with thousands being added every year, with adequate testing having been carried out on about 100, singly. Nothing much is being done about this -- it will require a terrible thalidomide catastrophe to awaken real action. The United States is about to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty for ridiculous reasons, and that will trigger a desperate new arms race. Ecosystems all over the world -- the oceans are being eviscerated -- are under increasing threat. We are about 20 years from the last wasting away of the Serengeti in Kenya, the end of the Indonesian rain forest, and others. We are losing perhaps 20,000 species a year, a rate that seems to be increasing.

H.G. Wells said that the 20th century was a race between education and catastrophe: it is more likely to be true of the 21st, but the education part is lagging behind.

But, you are right, we have learned some things. We have lost the faith in human perfection and utopias, which murdered so many people for so many years. We have begun to stop wasting women so stupidly. Life expectancies are way up. But when I look at your toddler, I see a smaller room, and a larger box of matches. Probably just attitude, I guess: I have less faith in human progress and learning than you do, maybe because I use myself as my model of human betterment. I am sure if I used you as a model, I would be much cheerier!!!! I wish you a happy new year!
yours, Peter T.