I have recently read some distressingly pessimistic outlooks for the future of humans. I have some optimistic things to say, to at least cheer myself up, but perhaps it's best to wade through the pessimism first:

The Anonymous Hawk recently loaned me book called "Ishmael," which was sort of interesting but overwhelmingly pessimistic, discussing in large part (by an English-speaking professorial gorilla; don’t ask) how unsustainably we are living, and not just from an energy perspective. When I looked at the author's web page, he was predicting human extinction by the year 2100. I mean, good grief, sometime before the end of the planet in a few billion years, humans may well go extinct. But 92 years from now?! Ouch.

When a crackpot on the corner holds a sign saying "The end is near," it's easy to ignore, but when an educated, articulate person (like the author of Ishmael) starts saying these things, it's a smidge more distressing. Of course, people have probably been predicting the imminent demise of humanity for as long as there has been verbal communication, and they have been wrong so far. At least wrong on the global scale, but not necessarily wrong in the cases of certain individual societies--read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond for some intelligent discussion on the subject...e.g., who on Easter Island, before that society's demise, thought it was a good idea to cut down the last tree there?

So, just when I was worrying about the predicted extinction in 2100, I read in the WSJ today a transcript from a Ted Turner interview in which Captain Courageous moves up the timeline significantly--

From an April 1 interview with Charlie Rose:

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" We'll . . . be eight degrees hotter in 10 – not 10, but in 30 or 40 years. And basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died, and the rest of us will be cannibals."

**

Thanks for the enlightenment, Ted. (In fairness, he was saying that is our fate if only we don’t *take drastic action now.*)

I am a believer in human ingenuity and creativity and engineers. The engineers will save us. Right, engineers? Bueller? Engineers? Bueller?

For example: Global warming—one result is too much water in oceans due to ice cap melting, right? Massive drought—means too little water, right? Well, large-scale de-salinization technology already exists and is being used in some locations, but it uses a lot of power...so how about solar-powered or wave-powered giant de-sal plants? All the technology already exists; it's just too expensive right now. The good news: Technology often gets more powerful and less expensive with time (e.g., computers).

I found a bit of hope in this connection in an article in the WSJ yesterday.

If the link doesn't work, here is a sample:

"A Silicon Valley firm, Innovalight, has figured out a way to harvest solar energy much more cheaply than present technology allows by dissolving silicon nanocrystals in ink, which will ultimately be printed onto roof panels like we print ink onto paper. Using a platform they developed as postdoctoral students at Berkeley, the founding scientists of a company called Amyris have re-engineered yeast to ferment sugar into pure hydrocarbon fuels. Unlike ethanol, the fuel has the energy density of gasoline (or jet fuel, if that's what they program the yeast to produce) and can be shipped through existing pipelines and pumped into any car now on the road."

Separately, there's a lot of hand wringing and gloom and doom about war, the economic downturn, the future of jobs and housing, the national debt, the "$53 trillion asteroid" that's "going to hit us" (social security and Medicare obligations)...but before we get too depressed about all that stuff (and they are real problems to be sure) let's take a deep breath and remember how good we have it.

Let's remember that these problems are solvable. Let's remember that the US is so resilient that it will withstand a lot more than one or two less-than-ideal presidents and a bunch of crummy congresspeople.

Optimism begets big-time results. (Of course other ingredients are needed—education, creativity, funding, etc…but optimism is a catalyst.) Not loony-head-in-clouds optimism, but realistic and fact-based optimism. Sure, it's good to have a contingency plan for a pessimistic scenario, but let's try to put on our optimistic hats at least occasionally.

And let's remember that almost every generation has spells like this, where they think the country is headed down a horribly wrong path and/or the future for their children looks grim. Can you imagine being a new parent in 1931, who had just lost a job and because it was the Great Depression, you had no idea how you were going to feed the child or yourself? Things are better than that now.

Or, perhaps imagine being someone, anyone old enough to read, in 1942, when it was not at all clear that the US and its friends could defeat both Japan and Germany. You might have been afraid that the US was going to become a colony of Japan, or that Hitler was going to rule most of the world. Things are better than that now.

Or, from an earlier era, imagine being the parents of soldiers in the civil war in 1863...not only you had no idea if you would ever see your children again, you had no idea if there would even be a United States of America the next year, let alone in ten years or twenty years. Things are better…(sense a theme here?)

Most people in the above situations found a way to at least persevere, if not prosper; this is part of what makes the US a great country. Of course, things could be different this time. China could eat our lunch for the next 50 years, or more. The next president could be worse than the current one (although I highly doubt that). But an early step down that crummy path towards the ruin of the United States of America is losing optimism, and losing hope.

So let's not do that. Okay?