This dead horse has been kicked often, and this is just one more time. So I will get my mine in, especially since we have long since passed from fact to hyperbole, which always makes for fun reading. When I was in grade school, the science textbook I read proclaimed universal famine and the complete depletion of all our minerals and oil would take place in the mid 1970's. No big deal since this was the 1940's so we could enjoy ourselves till then. They also proclaimed that the population of the earth would increase exponentially so there would be no breathing space. Soylent green, anyone? The problem with most predictions is they operate from the known and extrapolate with no understanding of the future. Technology becomes steady-state. And prejudices are built in to the prediction. Who could have predicted then that oil reserves now are enough to support the world for another hundred to 250 years, depending on who you listen to? Or that there is enough natural gas reserves to last 10,000 years (yes, that is 10,000. This info is from Technology, an excellent MIT mag.). Or that most of the western nations have either zero or negative population growth. Estimates say that the earth could support well in excess of 25 billion people (some say as high as 35 billion). We sure have room for about half that in Maine. But with current population trends, we are more likely to settle out around 10 billion (not Maine, but the world). As far as materials, many metals are in a glut status and not scarce at all. Add in GMO (might as well start another firestorm) other energy technologies (including nuclear and fusion), new materials, etc. and the future looks rather good. I like the saying that an optimist sees the glass half empty, the pessimist half full and the engineer says use a smaller glass. Bill Truesdell Bath, Me