[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Exactly! I am somewhat baffled that bright people are so mired in pessimism about the future when the present is so fantastic, and full of potential.

False analogy. You conclude on the future without knowing if the present is the valid basis for doing that regarding the details you focus on. Let me illustrate the problem.

When the Norse came to Greenland, they saw a vegetation and landscape that at bfirst glance looked very similiar to their own in Scandinavia. So one really cannot blame them for thinking they could run farming and agriculture the same way they were used to do from Scandinavia - it was reasonable, it was rational to assume that, considerign their information and knowledge of that time. But with time passing by, they realised that the vegetation due to the different, harsher climate grew much, much slower than in Norway, and that therefore grass and trees, once consumed, would not be replaced for a longer, a much longer time, than in Norway. Which meant the soil was exposed to wind and storm, salient air flows and in general: erosion, for much longer time, beign carried away and being lost. Over the latter two tirds of their presence on Greenland, agriculture and farming became more and more difficult, and finally non-maintainable anymore. Even more, the soil in Greenland is much made of Volcanic ashes, like in Iceland (just not so extreme), making it very fertile, but also very light and easily carried away by the wind, while the soil in Norways is made of much greater shares of heavy clay that is more difficult to be eroded by winds. You know how the story ended, for these factors and others as well (europeans started to trade ivory with the Far East instead with the Vikings, making this most precious trading good less valuable for the Vikings on Greenland; the mini "ice age" interupting shipping lines to Greenland; the vikings sticking to inadequate customs and habits that prevented them to learn surviving techniques from the Inuit and made them staying with absolutely unappropriate cultural habits and dress codes in order to stay connected to their home in eurpoe and demonstrating the very same cultural behavior like in europe - at all costs: an identity thing much like you cling to the socalled American way of life). First they had to let go their cows, their pride they were, but also a natural desaster for Greenland like the sheep in australia, and very, very difficult and work-intensive to be kept alive over the winter, then agricultural soil that could be used for farming became rare within the reach of the two major settlements. Supremacist behavior against the Inuit had turned the natives into enemies, and one did not learn survival techniques from them (how to hunt seals, for example). First the Western settlement died, and then the larger, Eastern died as well. Neal, they did not return to Scandinavia, you know. They DIED miserably - due to isolation from europe, cultural stubborness, farming and agriculture collapsing, and finally: starvation.

And Sky, regardless of your library and sources of media, etc., it's still as I said, you are gathering some of your ideas and opinions from external sources, who may or may not be accurate. Yes, maybe the polar ice cap is melting, but who says that signals Step 1 in the end of the world? Every autumn the leaves die and fall off the trees, doesn't mean that's it, it's all over for nature. My eyes are open, that could be why I am more skeptical about man-made global warming. I have not signed on to the Al Gore express. I admit that I am not in a knowledgeable position to express an opinion one way or the other. And reading articles for and against won't really make me more knowledgable, just more opinionated.

Well, no matter if you try to edcuate yourself oin thigns or not, you do not have the freedom not to make decisions in your life. Deciding you must, whether you like that or not, and you do not have the omnipotential to become a poracticng superexpert in all fields you could imagine. You have to accept compromise, therefore, and must try to come to decisns on basis of ninfomation that you have the freedom to collect in a laissez-faire manner, not caring a bit about their quality, or by trying to bring them together in a way you think that makes best sense. The latter is what I try to do. And it is not as if I do not have support for my conclusions from more knowing and more clever minds than my own.

You just have illustrated the general problem of ours in your very first sentence of your post. You want a good life, the party going on, and nobody disturbing the good mood. But the american/Western way of life that is in formidable waste of material wealth and natural ressources, cannot be maintained forever. The American way of life is nothign special, it is no natural law engraved in stone. It is an excess, and that is true for the whole Western culture of the modern. And even with, far far more modest living standards I have very severe doubts that the panet could maintain a global population of 7 billion if all these people would share that already lowered way of life.

We are far too many, and the few of us live far beyond reasonable standards, causing consequences that mean disaster for all others - and in the end their own children as well.