Porter's analysis of Duncan's doomsday message assumes reasonable (rational?) behavior by civilized beings. Our supposedly rational citizens and their leaaders are likely to foget the lessons of history. a very interesting book, "A Forest Journey" by John Perlin, goes back in history and examines the role of over-use of fuel resources (mostly wood) in the collapse of previous civilizations. He starts with Babylonia, whence the earliest written records have come, touches on Ionia, then Greece, and others. Each time a civilization waned and died, over-reaching for fuel supply played a major role, fuel to cook, to burn lime for mortar, to fire pottery, to smelt copper and iron. Our major fuel supply is different. It is not as renewable as wood.
Mike Marsh
