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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

>  it is hard to rationalize for the
> average bear that there won't be a workable solution to supplement and
> eventually replace oil.
> 

It is until you deduct just one thing from the equation:  all the 
technological advances that came about because we have been awash in oil for 
nearly 100 
years.

Admittedly my reading is a bit far flung, but we also have the notion that if 
we just "crack" the DNA code, it will prove to be like the machine code of a 
computer program and give us an understanding and control over every 
biological process.  Evidence is slowly but inexorably mounting that this is 
not the 
case.  We will "decode" the DNA in fairly short order and when we look into 
it 
for all the mysteries of even our biological existence, we will say "Oh 
...... 
that doesn't explain it, does it?"

Two French brothers in the 1780's, Montgolfier, pionered air travel by 
devising hot air (hot smoke and hot steam is more accurate) balloons.  It is 
said 
that on seeing the large baloon go aloft with several people on board, an old 
woman fell to her knees and exclaimed, 'Ah, the marvels, at this rate men 
will 
soon learn now not to die and by then I will already be dead!"

Well, 230 years later we haven't, and in fact aren't seriously looking.  With 
each turning of the page the main thing we discover is just how much it is we 
don't know.

I know there is a differing opinion on this, but we're barking up the wrong 
tree any way.  People use a lot more energy now than they did in my childhood 
(in the 50's) and yet they don't seem to be any happier to me.  Just the 
opposite I'd say.  Now, is piling up even MORE energy use going to suddenly 
reverse 
that and make everyone in the world content and fulfilled?   Thinks I, opines 
I, that we mistake the fear of losing our energy intense lifestyle for the 
notion that it makes us happy.

McMansions, suburbs, SUV's, are not what you find when you look up 
'happiness' in any dictionary to which I subscribe.   We are in drought 
central here and 
we've had to haul in water and be very niggardly in it's use much as is done 
in some of the most pressed 3rd world countries.  But I look around me at my 
low-energy-use clan bounding around in the woods like the feral children that 
they are, at night we have concerts of our own making on fiddle and harp and 
whistle much like Tolkein describes the dwarves playing when they first 
visited 
Bilbo, and today is library day where we cart out two score of books that we 
read and pass about during the next two weeks and talk about.  We like to 
party 
too on occasion, three or four times a week.  Some preserved snacks and great 
jug of cider or sassafras and we'll have talk like a pirate night, or imitate 
your favorite cartoon character night (mine's Yosemite Sam).  There are .... 
Fine Times at Our House.

And yet we live in the main as 18th century throw-backs.  All our heat is 
wood and almost all our cooking as well.  Most of the time we have unlimited 
water, but we know how to not have it as well. We use very few machines.  The 
work 
that is beyond our ability is done by a great noble horse.  I'm not even 
going to mention how much cash it takes to run this household, you wouldn't 
believe it anyway.

If the fare for the day is a pot of beans and crust of cornbread, it is a 
feast of cosmic proportions.  If the entertainment is a jig danced by the 
kitchen 
fire to dulcimer music, it is high art.  If the task for the day is cutting 
the fodder for the cow, it is an accomplishment worthy of story and song.  
And 
if you find nothing of great melancholy and also of great mirth in such a 
day, 
you live your life asleep.

Paradise passes each of us by unseen and unawares because we are desperately 
trying to stay afloat on a sea of oil.  

Lack of infinite energy is something I can wish on the rest of you with a 
good heart.   </HTML>