[Skybird]

True, but time is of the essence. Was one energy analysts asked in yesterday's program if he hears the clock ticking. Said he: "I stopped hearing it ticking a longer while ago." I feel the same way. For example, car manufacturers in Europe and america have different design philosophies. But in both regions, engines became more and more economic. that had different conseqeunces for car designs. The european cars are more economic today, becasue they are smaller and lighter, but their American rivals did not conserve the economic gains in engine design, so that they would build cars with lower gas consumption, but they started to build bigger cars with more powerful engines available. The economical engines that way were used not to operate with lower gas rates, but to run around heavier weight and more mass. Fuel consumption, nationwide, did not drop for that reason, althoiugh engine technology had become more efficient and economic: the new reserves were wasted for bigger size. A GM speaker yesterday said that is the reason why modern US cars still are suffering from an energy-efficiency "that is on the level of 20 to 30 years ago".

China also does not read the sign of times. They are still building their economy, one would think that is a phantastic chnace to avoid the mistakes we have done in the West and learn from them - wrong! The best they could do, said an analyst, is to learn how to build an economy from scratch that is independend from oil, like the brazilians did. Instead they are designing their economy to be totally dependent on oil. Seen that way, under today's presigns, they do everything wrong that could be done wrong, and wasting one of the biggest chances in the whole 5 millenias of their history.

The future looks grim, and I share Woolsey's assessment, and that of other analysts, that the future will hold energy wars after energy wars. Iraq already has been one of that, and in the iran business, influence on distribution pattern s of energy reserves again is the keyword. One guy even said it easily could end up in national desintegration, leading to medieval conditions were cities battle versus cities, for energy and water only.

More vocabularies need to be mentioned here: asymmetrical warfare, giving up the state's monopol on military power, a boom in the mercenary business that holds for several years now, outsourcing of military potentials. Add to that proliferation, different egocentric interests of Russia, EU, China and the US, and call it all survival of the fittest, and the future does not shine bright anymore. An increase in frequency and amplitude of natural desasters and weather phenomenons, an epidemic spread of civilizational deseases (diabetes, obesity, coronar deseases, social-psychological deseases) and the crushing effects on communal finances this will mean, and an ongoing epidemic spread of AIDS in underdeveloeped parts of the world, plus tropical deseases speading to the north, following the warming of the climate in various zones that had been colder before, all are only the spice on the cake. I do not think we progress into an evolutionary future. I think we step back to centuries that we all believed had been overcome since long. History does not move in linear progression, instead it keeps running in cycles. And our civilizational climax lies far behind us.

Necessity is mother of invention. But you need time to adopt. Too much time already has been wasted, I fear. The bill comes with a delay, but it will be a very massive one, and many will not be able to pay for it. First signs are already there. That almost noone reacts to them is not encouraging. History holds plenty of examples were local civilizations, city-states and communities acted the same way - and seized to exist for that reason. We are travelling the same road, I think.