I have more than a little sympathy for that belief. After all, we live on a finite sphere and our population is on a tremendous, exponential growth rate. It is unsustainable, regardless of whatever technological advances emerge in the future.

But there are some signs of changes that may offer an alternative. I'm think especially of the drop in birth rate below what's necessary for maintenance among most industrialized countries. If that progession hold, then as industrialization spreads deeper into the third world countries perhaps the population growth in those countries will decline, too.

If that doesn't happen, then we are going to have an interesting planet in the next couple of generations. We got this global warming, population growth, nuclear weapons proliferation, resurgence of fanatical religious fundamentalism, increasing stratification in society -- especially in the third world, decreasing freshwater availability, decreasing oil reserves, and decreasing arable land.

Good luck, you twenty-somethings. You or your children are going to need it.

Botnst