Thanks, dianavan, for actually reading that and commenting on it.   

I really wonder how many people here have read it, especially those of the radical "conservative" bent. That one piece alone outlines the problem in terms so clear that even the most devout Bush worshipper should be able to grasp the nature of the problem and be moved to rise above partisan politics and become concerned for the fate of the whole human race and the future of the planet.

But they will undoubtedly just write it off, slapping some simple-minded bumper-sticker epithet on it, like "junk science," even though it is not a matter of scientific speculation, it is recorded history—things that have actually happened. The examples given of societies that have collapsed and the reasons they collapsed are crystal clear to anyone who cares to look. But there are those who don't want to know. It might cause them to begin to have doubts about their little demigod in the White House and his supporters, and the nature of our whole "screw everybody, just get the money" society.

I sometimes despair of my species. I can imagine a time thousands or hundreds of thousands of years in the future—or perhaps only a few hundred years in the future—when a starship from some nearby system drops into parking orbit around the earth and the alien explorers find that, despite a poisonous atmosphere similar to that of the second planet in this system, this planet was home to a large population of an indigenous technological species, now extinct. Exploration and analysis leads them to conclude that, although this species was intelligent enough to develop a fairly sophisticated technology, it was not sufficiently intelligent to be far-sighted enough to predict the results of its unbridled exploitation of the planet's resources, its careless use of its technology, and the inevitable and easily foreseeable poisoning of the planet. As they enter our species into their log and break orbit to continue their explorations, they will shake their heads (or the alien equivalent) think of us as we now think of the foolishly short-sighted Easter Islanders.

Don Firth

P. S. I know, Doug. "The sky is falling!" Well, if someone doesn't start using a couple of brain cells pretty damned soon, you'd better put on your hard-hat!