Cassandra was the daughter of Priam, King of Troy. After 9 years of being besieged by the Greeks, the Trojans woke up one morning to find the Greeks gone, except for a huge wooden horse by the beach. The exultant Trojans decided to drag the horse back to Troy in celebration. Cassandra had a gift, and a curse: she was gifted with the ability to prophesise the future, but cursed so that no one would ever to believe her prophecies. She prophesised that the great horse would spell doom for her city, but the triumphant Trojans refused to believe her. As history and the Brad Pitt blockbuster tells, her prophecy did indeed come true, and at night the Greek soldiers poured from the wooden horse to open the city gates for the Greek army hidden nearby.

For the past couple of decades, modern-day Cassandras have been trying to convince us that breakneck economic development could spell doom for mankind with its potential for climate change and pollution. Even as we revel in our riches and wealth (or at least the few percent of us lucky enough), our detritus and filth slowly chokes our planet. Environmentalists and scientists have been trying to warn us of the potential consequences of our actions, from the ozone layer problem, to the really big cheese, global warming and the little-acknowledged fact that petroleum sources are finite. Of course, the almighty dollar speaks the loudest, and whatever lies in the way of short term profit and gain has to be suppressed. So we have the Bush administration and the rest of the money-engorged US government (the US congress killed the Kyoto treaty even though the Clinton administration was in support) effectively covering their ears even as the climate is already changing around us.

All across Europe, weather patterns are clearly changing. Almost the entire scientific community apart from a few quacks are certain that climate change is anthropocentric (i.e. man-made). This is not a problem that a few magic-pill ideas can solve. It requires a massive change of public opinion, and a complete overhaul of the way societies and economies function.

As if to make things more interesting, last week crude oil prices went above $40 per barrel. The current crisis, like that of the 1970s, is of course political in nature, but it does bring to surface the stark reality that global oil supplies are finite. At current projected rates of increase in consumption, the world's oil reserves are not going to last more than 30 years. Indeed, there's talk that we've already hit 'peak oil', i.e. the amount of oil produced will continue to decrease from now on: gasoline prices are gonna keep going up from now, people. If no new sources of energy emerges to plug the gap, we're going to have economic problems that make the 1930s depression look like a walk in the park. Hell, it's going to be much more than an economic problem...almost everything in our daily lives depends on energy. Worst-case scenario is that all hell breaks lose, and anarchy reigns, with a helping of mass-starvation and war.

Our only hope is in new sources of energy and the new techologies to harness them, and that requires the powers-that-be to take their heads out of their collective asses and realise that much more is at stake here than just money.

On another note, I have added a comment function to this blog, so readers (yes, all two of you...) can add insults or sycophantic praises as they see fit...