Wow. Walking through the airport, I saw a sign:
Shell Oil says: When Mother Nature doesn’t back down, we have experts up to her challenge.
Think about that framing! Shudder. That’s the framing of extinction. Mother Nature, dear Shell Oil, is what gives us life. Food. Clothes. Even *gasp* oil.
Maybe we are, indeed, at war with Mother Nature. If so, it’s a war we can only lose. She’ll win. Can you say “Global warming?” Species extinction? Honey Bees?
The engineers aren’t up to those challenges, just yet. Especially in a country where Gallup reported today that 68% of Repubs and 40% of Dems/Indeps don’t believe in evolution, I don’t have high hopes that we’ll be leading innovation into solving world problems 20 years from now. Though we might still be drilling oil.