ision course with our own, and that will certainly do us in.

That is a summary of the stuff that passes for science shows on television. On the tube, everything must be melodramatic, and now, thanks to computer graphics, the show's producers can actually show us a simulation of the horrible disasters that might overtake us.

Well, since our life span is measured in decades instead of millennia, much less millions of years, I wouldn't worry about any of the above.

There are two little words that will always tip you off to journalistic hype. They are "may" and "could." Whenever you see those words, turn the show off or toss what you're reading into the trash can. Literally anything could happen or may happen, but we should concern ourselves only with what will probably happen in our own lifetime.

Besides, there is nothing we can do about galaxies, super volcanoes, comets, meteors and the expanding and/or contracting universe. Leave those to God, and let us attend to the less dramatic but nevertheless important problems we can actually do something about.

We can, for example, learn to become better stewards of the earth. We can work to improve the education system and to educate ourselves so that we can make better decisions in our own personal and political affairs. We can work for peace, because nuclear war is a much more likely scenario than any geological or astronomical disaster. Global warming may create new waterfront property, but a nuclear explosion will create a really mass graveyard.

We can work on developing compassion and on helping other people who are hurting. One of the illusions we in America all have at one time or another is the belief that if we can just create the right system, everybody can be prosperous and healthy. Sadly, that is not so. Some people just have bad luck. Some people just don't have what it takes to win the rat race. There will always be people who are poor and people who are sick.

Our choice is either to follow Ayn Rand's path and let them perish while we pursue our own selfish interests, or to follow the path of Christianity, Buddhism and Islam and feed the hungry, clothe the naked and minister to the sick. The latter choice is not a program to end hunger or poverty. That's utopianism. It is rather a duty that will go on for generations. As long as the human race exists, there will be poverty and illness. They can be ameliorated but not eliminated.

I always recommend that people read Jack London's essay "How I Became a Socialist." It is not a polemic, but it provides a true insight into the human condition. London was young, strong as a bull, bright as a laser, but he had the intelligence to see as he tramped about the world that men, many of whom had once been just as strong and just as bright as he, could be beaten down and worn out. That's very hard for a young, healthy person to understand, but it is true. Youthful arrogance is the most foolish of all vices.

We can and certainly should begin now to plan for the end of oil. Whether so-called peak oil comes sooner or later, it will come, and it will require drastic changes in the way we live. It is our bad luck to be living at the end of the Fossil Fuel Age, but on the other hand, it will give us plenty of challenges and things to do.

If we do it right, we might even produce a better world. After all, we've learned from experience that traffic jams and suburban sprawl are not that desirable. It is possible to live comfortably while using a whole lot less energy than we do now. I lived in the Deep South for the first 27 years of my life without air conditioning, and if necessary, I can do it again.

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