L. J. - "It isn't just that the gloom and doom crowd hasn't been right yet, they've been proven spectacularily wrong time after time. Why anyone gives them any credibility at all is beyond me."

I don't believe anyone thinks human society grow at the rate it's done for the last 100 years without serious damage to the Earth. And it's growing.

Every resource is proving to be finite - air, water, oceans, forests, fish. Except one. People.

People seem to be infinite, and as our numbers increase, so do our needs and by-products.

The needs are consuming forests and fish, water and air. The by-products are decreasing the quality of the air, polluting the oceans, fouling the water.

Look at how much fresh water was available 100 years ago, and now. Think of how much fresh water will be needed when the world's population is twice what it is now, and ask yourself how much more nature will be providing.

OK, we have the technology to produce fresh water. Consider how much energy it would take to provide fresh water for everyone. And the heat and/or chemical by-products from that process.

Add how fast the population is increasing. When the population doubles again, how will air, water and energy be provided. And what will be done with the heat and/or chemical by-products.

While technology can tweak the process, extending the time available on some marginal level, measured in years, it can't do so for centuries, certainly not millenia. We're using up the basic reserves.

What was once thought impossible is now inevitable. There's a limit to the amount of air, water and oceans. Once those reserves, such as air, forests, and oceans are consumed, once nature doesn't provide enough fresh water, mankind will be reduced to living on what is produced. And the population will be increasing, if some religious sects have their way.

It doesn't really seem possible to look at the gauges and not realize they will run out. Yeah, once in a while a bit will be added. And, overall, it's running out.

Asteroids? We have rocks. Lotsa rocks. Piles of rocks. Big ones, little ones, in-between ones.

Arf