<font color="blue"> I really don't stress out on what the future will bring. I served my country and I don't litter. If that helps bring about a mammalian society, I'll accept that. I don't really worry about it.</font>
John, I deeply admire your service to your country, and I respect the views you are expressing. I would just like to make an observation that to me, there is a difference between stressing and worrying, and calmly discussing options and taking prudent actions that will make the future better than it would have otherwise been absent such actions.
Tom - I realized I was leaving out our 6-legged friends as I was posting that - can't forget them. If anything could survive a 10,000 megaton nuclear exchange, it would be the cockroach.
And Jst - As to <font color="blue"> Ultimately the planet will decide what's best </font>: I hear what you're saying, but we do have a lot to do with what goes on on this planet. There are probably inexorable forces at work which will wipe out civilization as we know it within 200 years or less, but we can at least forestall the inevitable. For instance, start building safe, standardized nuclear reactors based on the brand-new French design on which construction will begin this year, and use them to reduce our dependance on oil, and to power the desalinization plants that we will so obviously need in the near future, as the midwest's Oglala Aquifer is depleted and the world's population heads to 9 billion by 2100.
Next maybe we could get money out of politics, so solutions to some of these problems can be discussed on their merits, rather than according to whose pockets stand to be lined. Don't hold your breath though, the Supreme Court has essentially determined that "one person, one vote" is unconstitutional. Oh well, there's always hope - maybe I'll come back as a cockroach.
