Brian Gongol
Things could always be worse: The Dark Ages lasted 1,000 years
For all the economic anxiety hyped daily by the news media, it's worth keeping in mind that any disruptions we pass through ought to be quite temporary. The Dark Ages, on the other hand, lasted a thousand years. Today we have the Internet, mobile phones, and mass publication of books, not to mention air travel, biochemistry research, and plastics. Technology and knowledge make it easier to recover from setbacks and easier to avoid hazards before they occur. We should, for instance, be using our technological sophistication to make better use of the food we grow so that less of it goes to waste and more of it can be stored in case of some calamity that causes widespread crop failures -- like the Year Without a Summer, which followed the 1815 eruption of the Tambora volcano. We know how to powder milk and freeze-dry ice cream, so it's not beyond our capacities to come up with ways to preserve enough food that we could survive a global ecological disaster for at least long enough to come up with a way to fix it.
$10 billion could turn wind into a major export for Iowa and nearby states
The Upper Midwest is wind-rich, but conducting the electricity that could be generated here outside the region would take better transmission lines. A project under consideration would build huge transmission lines to get the power out -- but it could easily cost $10 billion.
60% of US forces on active duty are "pessimistic" or "uncertain" about an Obama administration
DoE tool helps estimate ways to reduce gas use
Fire strains municipal water system
