Honorable Mention

1102s in 2102 - Federal Contracting One Hundred Years in the Future

By Carl R. Henn

Introduction

The Federal Government refers to its Contract Specialists as "1102s". Peering one hundred years into the future, this article speculates on how life for 1102s will have changed by the year 2102. As a basis for comparison, we first take a brief look back 102 years to 1898. Most of the technologies that shaped the 20th century had already been invented at the close of the 19th century. Powerful forces at work at the end of the 19th century carried into the following decades. If past is prologue, then a look at the trends and technologies around us today can help to predict our future. This article projects current trends forward 102 years to see where they are taking us. Among the interesting projections is that we will have no more contract specialists after 2046.1 We will have no farms after 2092 if the current rate of farm loss continues. 2 This is of course ridiculous - as long as we need to eat we will need and have farmers. Likewise, as long as we have a complex economy, we will have contracts and some professional staff who award and manage them. Simply projecting a current trend into the future is not a good predictor. The article then looks at "trend benders", applying logic and a few basic assumptions to paint how our jobs will look long after we have retired.

1898

One hundred two years ago, our nation stood at the brink of a century that would bring computers, atomic bombs, television, and urbanization followed by suburbanization. The horse and buggy was replaced by the car. The railroad was supplanted by the interstate highway system and a world wide airline network. We won two world wars and put a man on the moon.

Any one who claims that all this could have been foreseen and predicted with confidence back in 1898 is lying. But the most important inventions that changed the 20th century were already invented in 1898. The most important forces that bent the 1900's into their peculiar shape were at work already in 1898.

The internal combustion engine was invented in 1860.3 Henry Ford's first car followed in 1893. While the airplane wasn't invented till 1903, it was clearly within grasp at the end of the 19th century. Da Vinci had outlined the principles. What was missing was an engine with a high enough power to weight ratio, some sound engineering and some spunk. The advantages of gas powered vehicles were clear: greater power, greater range, lower maintenance, and cars don't poop in the streets. The decline of the horse was foreordained by these advantages.

Urbanization was both allowed by, and required by, the mechanization of agriculture. Cyris McCormick perfected his reaper in 1834, and as it came into greater use, the farmers who had them drove those who didn't out of business. As more tools for increasing agricultural production and decreasing agricultural labor came into use, farmers moved to the cities to work in the factories that built these tools. They also built the widening array of consumer products coming available.

By 1898, you could already shave with a Gillette safety razor, take your Kodak camera to a professional baseball game, or stay home and read about it in tomorrow's newspaper, with results of all the games across the nation instantly transmitted by radiotelegraph. Other inventions destined to make it big that were already with us in 1898 included the telephone, machine gun, bicycle, pasteurization, insulin, phonograph, electric generator, steam turbine, freezers, surgical sterilization, and motion pictures.

While agricultural mechanization and industrialization drove the movement to the cities, the car drove the movement to the suburbs. Cars allowed you to live out where housing was cheaper and work where incomes were higher. While European's foresaw the destruction this would wreak on their cities, and controlled sprawl to some extent, America embraced the car and to a great extent abandoned their cities. This was due to the power of the burgeoning auto, oil and tire industries but was abetted by racial politics. The majority (white) came to see the cities as homes for minorities (nonwhite) and hence were willing to abandon them. This is an illustration of how technology can facilitate change, but social factors shape the direction that the technology will take us.

While the computer was not yet invented, its precursor, the keypunch machine, was already able to rapidly store and retrieve data. While there were no electronic calculators, manual cash registers could quickly tally up the cost of your groceries.

The energy that built the economy of the twentieth century was already discovered and put into practice in the nineteenth century. Coal, oil and hydroelectricity provide the lion's share of our power, and all were in use by 1898. The decline of wood as a fuel source was well under way by 1898, due to the advantages of coal and oil. The 1900s would only add two new power sources worthy of mention - the photoelectric cell in 1904 (with silicon wafer version invented in 1954) and nuclear power in 1955. Currently these two power sources provide a small portion of our electricity and a very small portion of our total energy demand.

If most of the great forces and technologies that shaped the twentieth century were with us at the close of the nineteenth, perhaps the same is true now. A look at the technology and underlying forces at work today could tell us something about life in 2102.

Que pasa?

So what is happening now? What trends and forces are at work today? There are dozens of important trends that will effect how our future will play out - urbanization, industrialization, aging of the population, economic growth, etc. This paper will focus briefly on several "trend benders" related to resource use and the environment. These trends have the potential to greatly effect the trends mentioned above, and the fate of our planet more generally.

Some of the most important trends now underway are flying below the radar of traditional analysis. Soil erosion and oil depletion are given less attention than game shows and political scandals. Ultimately the depletion of non-renewable resources and degradation of renewable resources is more important that "Who wants to be a Millionaire?" Our economy is unsustainable because it relies on fossil fuels and other non renewable resources. Further, we are degrading the renewable resources that we rely on, thereby reducing the level at which these renewable resources can be harvested. In banking terms, we are living off the principal rather than the interest.

As we have built an ever larger economy based on ever greater quantities of oil, coal, iron, steel, copper, and aluminum, we haven't recognized that we are depleting these resources. The most critical of these are oil and coal because they can not be recycled and their energy runs everything we do, including the mining and processing of the other resources.

Energy

Oil production figures could more accurately be called oil depletion figures. We don't produce oil - we pump it out from where nature and geologic time put it. The American public has been assured that we have 75 years of oil left to produce at current usage rates.4 First we should note that 75 years isn't a long time in the grand scheme of things. Then we should note that it is ridiculous to believe that oil production will level off next year, stay the same for 75 years then drop to nothing in the 76th year.

A more realistic projection would show production increasing by about 1% per year till a peak is reached, then decreasing as the oil fields are played out. We can't know when oil production will end, nor does it matter much. When the last barrel is burned the world economy will no longer rely on oil. More important than when the last oil is used up is when will oil production peak. 5

Predicting the peak of production can be done by various methods. A geologist named M.King Hubbert developed a model to predict the peak of oil production and used this model in 1956 to predict that U.S. oil production from the lower 48 states would peak around 1970. Hubbert was remarkably accurate: U.S. production in the lower 48 states peaked in 1970.6

Mr. Hubbert is now dead. But scientists applying an updated version of his methodology now predict that the global peak of oil production will be reached by 2010. Optimists give us till 2020. After the peak comes the decline of production and rising prices. 7

Some economists predict that rising prices will cause development of alternate energy sources or more oil production. Clearly, higher prices will result in greater incentive to drill for oil. But higher prices won't put oil anywhere where nature hasn't already put it.

Regardless, analysts agree we will have far less oil production in 2100 than we do today. The prospects for other energy sources are worth considering. Coal will still be available, though the depletion of oil will make getting it out more difficult. The environmental concerns regarding coal are also problematic. By 2100 we will know whether global warming precludes using coal to replace oil. Moreover, as much coal as we have, it is nonetheless finite and hence can only be a temporary fix. The "500 year" supply of coal we often hear about is based on current usage, not on greatly expanding its use to replace dwindling oil supplies. This also applies to natural gas and oil shale.

Several other limitations to the use of coal and oil shale should also be kept in mind. Where coal or shale are to be used as a liquid fuel (transportation most notably) , they must be liquified - an expensive and energy intensive process. Also, water is needed to produce shale oil. The largest oil shale deposits in America are in the Colorado River basin. The Colorado no longer reaches the sea due to current water usage. The water needed to process the shale is unavailable.8

Finally the issue of net energy dogs these alternatives. Mining and processing fossil energy sources requires energy. The amount of energy produced must exceed the energy necessary to produce it, or the energy source will never be economic regardless of the price of energy. The richest known resources are tapped first, and as they are exhausted, lower grade resources are brought into production. Over time the amount of energy spent to recover a given amount of energy rises. When the energy expended to process and deliver power rises to the level of energy released then the process ceases to be feasible regardless of the price of energy. In 1916 the ratio of energy returned to energy expended for oil drilling in the U.S. was about 28 to 1. By 1985, the ratio had dropped to 2 to 1 and is still dropping.9

The net energy issue dooms another otherwise promising alternative - ethanol. The process of growing corn and processing it into ethanol takes in more energy than it provides when the total process is evaluated.10

Wind energy and photo-voltaic (solar) electricity, while currently only a small portion of our power, have grown by 26% and 17% per year during the 1990's. As the computer industry shows, a high growth rate can bring a new technology into general use in a short time period.11 Important limitations on solar and wind energy must be acknowledged - it isn't always windy, the sun doesn't shine at night, solar energy is diffuse, use of solar panels isn't compatible with many other land uses, and electricity is less convenient for cars than oil.12

Nuclear fission is in the final analysis based on a non renewable source. It has significant cost and safety issues. Controlled fusion has never been achieved in spite of billions spent on research13

The depletion of fossil fuels combined with the limitations of the known possible replacements suggests that energy prices will be higher in the future and energy intensive processes and products will be reformed. It is worth repeating that we haven't come up with a significant new energy source since the 1950s, in spite of billions in research and the mental efforts of many brilliant scientists and engineers. While this brief review doesn't do justice to this complex issue, it should give pause to those who assume that continually greater amounts of energy will always be available.

Forests

Forests seem distant from our daily office routine. But forest products are no further than the memo on your desk, the desk itself, the air you breathe and the water you drink. Forests provide wood and pulp for paper, they clean and oxygenate our air, and are critical to providing clean water, climate stabilization and preventing floods and mudslides.

Properly managed, forests are a renewable resource. But renewable doesn't mean unlimited. We are cutting down trees faster than they grow back, and in some areas it will be centuries before trees return due to soil loss that occurred after logging. Each year from 1980 to 1990 our net loss of forested area was equal in size to South Korea.14

Exotic species, from chestnut blight to the Asian long horn beetle, threaten to gravely reduce the productivity of our forests. As global trade and international travel have greatly increased, so has the threat and reality of "bioinvasion", the spread of non native species that can cause major ecological decline effecting forestry and agriculture.15

An overabundance of nitrogen, due to car and factory exhaust, is now depleting forests of vital minerals such as magnesium, calcium and potassium ions, and hence threatening long term production. In 1997 both the Ecological Society of America and the international Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment named nitrogen pollution as a "preeminent problem" that is not being given enough public recognition.16

Acid rain is causing dieoffs in the Red Spruce and Balsa forests of Vermont, and has killed 80% of mature trees in some mountains in North Carolina. Ozone is killing the Ponderosa and Jeffrey pine in California. The mixed mesophytic forests of Appalachia suffer from an unknown ailment that is causing widespread tree death. Further, it is likely that our trees are more vulnerable to exotic species attack, cold and drought due to the effects of pollution.17

And things more subtle than acid rain or erosion can doom the ability of our forests to regenerate after logging. It has been learned that Douglas fir has a symbiotic relationship with the mycorrhiza fungus. The fungus wraps around the roots of the tree and greatly increase the trees ability to absorb water and nutrients. In fact, the tree can not live without the fungus, nor the fungus without the tree. Both tree and fungus rely on squirrels that eat both the fungus and the seeds of the tree to insure that seeds are planted together with the fungus. But the squirrel has no reason to enter a vast clear cut. The fungus dies after the trees are cut. The squirrel, tree, fungus link is broken, and a new generation of Douglas fir cannot simply be replanted.18

For our paper and wood use to become sustainable, we will need to reduce our usage markedly, modify our logging practices, and reduce the air and water pollution that we steep our trees in. If our population is to continue to increase, then our pollution per capita and paper use per capita must be cut even more dramatically.

Agriculture

Agriculture again may seem distant from your desk, but is in reality no further than the shirt on your back, the breakfast in your belly and the lunch you anticipate. Today's agriculture, like forestry, is carried out in an unsustainable manner. Reliance on fossil fuels, fossil fertilizers, and declining aquifers are challenges that must be overcome just to maintain current production. Further, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity and farm loss to urbanization and industrialization haunt the prospects of continued farm productivity gains. Water is critical to farming, but we already use most of the fresh water that nature provides, and increasingly that water is being diverted to non-farm uses. Aquifers on every inhabited continent are being pumped out faster than they recharge.19

While grain production per hectare increased by 2.1% per year between 1950 and 1990, the rise between 1990 and 1995 averaged only 1 percent per year. This decline in production is critically important because 2.1% increases were greater than world population growth, while 1 percent increases are less than global population growth. The large increases in grain productivity from 1950 to 1990 were due to specific changes in agricultural practice: increased irrigation, increased fertilizer use, and improved plant varieties. But each of these practices has its limit. Plants grow better with appropriate soil moisture. But once a plant has enough water, more water doesn't help and may hurt production. Likewise, plants can only use so much fertilizer. Thus the great increase in productivity due to these factors can not be repeated.20

What about better plant varieties? While more innovations will occur, it is important to note that with improved seeds that there are limitations as well. Improved wheat yield was achieved by reducing the height of the plant. In the wild, taller plants got more sunlight. But they put more energy into stalk than into seed. So wheat was bred to grow with larger seed heads and shorter stalks. This increased yield and reduced crop loss due to "blow down". But since this innovation is already in place, it is no longer available to further increase yields.21

There is a clear link between the limitations facing agriculture and limitations on wood and paper production. Land used for agriculture isn't available for forestry. The idea that we can substitute paper based on fast growing kenaf or hemp, or expanding fast growing tree plantations is limited by our need for that same land to grow food.

Biodiversity

An economy that drives species extinct faster than new species are formed is unsustainable. By this measure, it is clear that our current economy is unsustainable, as species extinctions are estimated to be occurring at several thousand times the natural background rate.22 We are in the midst of an extinction episode rivaling the end of the dinosaurs. Seventy percent of the world's 9,600 bird species are in decline, with 1,000 threatened with extinction in the near future.23 Birds play an important role in natural pest control.

Decline in species that pollinate plants is of particular concern. The decline threatens not only biodiversity but also the world's food supply. Honeybees, on which many commercial crops depend, are in especially bad shape, as noted by an international group of scientists in the journal Conservation Biology. In addition to pesticides and habitat loss, they are threatened by a scourge of parasites that has cut their population by 25% since 1990. Other pollinators--insects, rodents, birds, and bats--are in trouble too, and many are on the verge of extinction, the authors say. Gary Paul Nabhan, an ecologist at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, states "This is the most perilous decline of any serious agricultural [resource] in our lifetime. We anticipate declining yields of food crops if nothing's done."24

The loss of wild ancestors of domesticated plant species threatens our ability to respond to changing conditions. Modern agriculture depends on large monoculture tracts grown on fertilized soils. Such crops are vulnerable to invasive weeds, diseases and pests. The genetic base needed to combat these weaknesses largely occurs in nearby non-agricultural ecosystems now threatened by the agricultural expansion.25

While I have focused on the importance of biodiversity in agriculture, we depend on biodiversity for many other critical functions, from water purification to waste disposal, from drug development to climate stabilization.26

Global Warming

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has now concluded that the warming that has already occurred is unlikely to be due entirely to natural causes - that anthropogenic global warming is already underway.27 While there are a few elements of global warming that may be beneficial to humans, the faster it occurs and the greater the temperature increase, the more likely that the effects will be negative and possibly catastrophic. The risks we run include major vegetation changes in one-third of global forests, disappearance of entire forest types, more frequent forest fires, extinction of certain animals and plants as their ranges shift, expansion of deserts, decrease in per capita water availability in some areas, loss of glacier mass, inundation of coastal wetlands, coral reefs and river deltas, more extreme weather events, greater transmission of vector-borne disease and more.28 The prospect of global warming further reduces our workable options for energy sources, since fossil fuels add to green house gas emissions.

Population Growth

Population growth - It took from the dawn of civilization till 1800 for the human population to reach one billion. In the two hundred years since then our population has grown to six billion, with the last billion being added in only 12 years. The U.S. census bureau predicts global population will reach 9,298,500,000 by 2050 and still be growing by over 40 million per year.29 All the problems outlined elsewhere in this article are exacerbated by our growing numbers.

So what you're saying is…

We are in a heap of trouble. Seventeen hundred of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, have joined in saying that "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about."30

Our problems are deep and fundamental, but not unsolvable.

2102

To describe how things may be in a typical contracting office in 2102 you have to make some assumptions about how things worked out in the years between. This description is based on two assumptions - one optimistic and one pessimistic. First I assume that we have averted catastrophe. We still have a modern economy, a functioning democracy and no more mayhem in the streets than we have now. Secondly, I assume that we haven't had a breakthrough providing a safe, powerful new energy source. As discussed above, it is possible but it isn't something we should assume will occur.

Given the many environmental threats to our well being, an assumption that we will have averted catastrophe by 2102 presupposes that we will have reformed our economy and practices in many significant ways. By 2102, urban sprawl will be referred to in history courses, not as a current event. The role of automobiles in transportation will be greatly reduced, replaced with compact, walkable communities and greatly improved transit systems. The ability to maintain an air travel network is questioned by the depletion of oil, as well as by the disproportionate environmental harm caused by air travel.31 If air travel remains, it will be more of an extravagance than a central part of the transportation system. Global trade will still be present, but reduced by increased transportation costs and a greater emphasis on bioregionalism. Sailing ships will return to the sea, and people will marvel that there was a time when ships were built without sails. We will have learned far more about how nature works and how we need to work within its constraints.

Agriculture will have been thoroughly revised in the face of environmental limits and depletion of oil. Small farms worked by hand will return even in the U.S. The nutrient cycle will be closed as fossil fertilizers become more scarce. Coffee grounds will be seen as valuable fertilizer rather than garbage.

But let's follow our intrepid GS-1102 to work on a Monday morning in 2102. Bob takes a five minute shower with a low flow shower head, dresses and walks two flights downstairs to his office. When oil supplies started to decline in 2010, the price of oil increased and people who lived well away from work fought for and got the right to telecommute. In a few short years, business owners found they didn't need as much office space since so many employees weren't physically coming to work. On the other hand, many employees weren't able to use telecommuting for various reasons and sought homes closer to work. As office rental requirements declined, wise landlords converted the space to living quarters of various sorts. It became the norm to have general interest shops and restaurants on the first floor, offices above that and apartments over that. The two flights of stairs commute is common, and the commute from the kitchen to the home office is equally popular. People with longer commutes typically bike or take the trolley. Most of the cars you see around are biodiesel hybrid taxicabs. A small fleet of taxis is more efficient than a large fleet of privately owned cars that sit parked 90% of the time.

As Bob enters his office, a sensor turns on the light. When he leaves for a meeting, the sensor turns off the light. When there is enough sunlight to work by, the sensor turns off the lights. Old fashioned incandescent light bulbs are no longer manufactured- only high efficiency lights are used.

A coworker, Jill, arrives and locks up her bike at a vertical hanging rack in front of the office. This space saving device is used at most large offices. While the old car parking lots would have provided ample room for bike parking, they were torn out long ago to put in more buildings. Office space built well out into the sprawl was disassembled during the 2030's, the materials reused to build new buildings in more compact urban centers. The land formerly used for sprawl office buildings was returned to farming. The demand for farming acreage increased as oil declined, since draft horses eat farm products rather than oil. Farmland near cities was especially valued, since long distance transport takes precious energy. All new buildings were built with energy efficiency in mind. Most were laid out elongated on the east-west axis to maximize solar heat gain in winter and minimize solar heat gain in summer.32 People marvel that so many homes were built in the age of oil that took no advantage of solar heating and cooling principles.

Meanwhile another coworker, working from home, finishes the morning paper and turns his attention to his inbox. The "paper" is electronic, and was automatically focused on his personal interests. The inbox is also electronic. All the manuals and policy guidance he needs are electronic and only a few clicks away. Video conferencing with your coworkers or contractors is no more difficult than making a phone call. All the telecommuters have big gardens, and frequently tend to them during "business hours". This creates no animosity with bosses, because they are available at all times and their value to the organization is measured by their outputs of accomplishments rather than their inputs of how many hours they sit in a chair facing a computer.

Bob now walks out for lunch at a picnic table in the shade of solar panels. The small remaining car parking lot is set in shadow of the building. Sunlight doesn't go to waste. If sunlight isn't shining on trees or gardens, it is likely to hit a solar panel before it hits the ground. Roofs are nearly universally covered with solar panels. Someone magically transported from today to Bob's lunch table in 2102 might be struck by the lack of obese people. Part of the answer lies in Bob's lunch. Meat is very expensive, so eating lower on the food chain is the norm. The rest of the answer is in Bob's life style. He walks to the grocery, walks to the movies, walks to the cleaners, walks to the hair cutter, walks to just about everything he does. He tends to take the stairs instead of the elevators.

This change in elevator behavior is interesting to consider. Elevators are a major energy user. As energy became scarcer and hence expensive, building owners sought ways to limit their use. Urging folks to "walk up one and down two" soon became rules that were widely ignored, humans being what they are. The next step was reconfiguring elevators so that they wouldn't come to the first floor unless called by a handicap key. Then came coin op elevators. In buildings with banks of elevators, all but one are turned off. Other building owners sought to control use by putting in a simple delay so that your elevator never comes in less than two minutes after being called.

So when Bob finishes lunch, he returns his Coke bottle for deposit, the bottle is cleaned and reused rather than crushed and recycled (reuse is far more efficient than recycling), and puts his apple core in the composter, then walks up the stairs back to the office. Bob has no paper copy of the FAR, the HHSAR, the PHSAR, the NIH Manual or the Guide to Debarred and Suspended Contractors. They are all electronic, searchable and kept up to date automatically. Bob doesn't even have a paper copy of any of the contracts he has signed, and only the 102 year old Jim remembers when they had paper contracts. He is looking forward to retirement in three years. The amount of vacation that an employee with 70 years of experience gets is impressive, but necessary to keep a positive attitude after so many years.

Jim also remembers when environmental performance became a mandatory criterion on his performance appraisal. It was a little controversial at the time, but ironically when the criterion was removed 23 years later it was because it went without saying. No one comes to work without pants, or blows his nose on the curtains. No policy is needed for this because such behavior is so clearly unacceptable that it just doesn't happen. So it was that as society changed, it first adopted environmental criteria on performance appraisals, then quietly dropped them when it became clear that they just weren't needed.

Paper still exists, but is rarely used. The office, with thirty employees, has one printer up by the Director's office. One bin is loaded with used paper, set to print on the unused backside for internal correspondence and working papers, the other has new paper. To pick up your printing you have to walk by the big boss's open door, and by her secretary. Limiting the number and placement of printers reduces paper use, and also saves energy. The electric bill is an issue and reducing the number of printers for this reason has long been the norm. The price of paper is far higher in 2102 than today. Travel costs far more in 2102, but travel is rarely authorized, because nearly everything is done through local travel or through teleconference.

Faxes still exist, but don't automatically print. They are tied in with e-mail and go directly to the person they are intended for, who can decide whether they need to print the document.

The world of 2102 would in some ways be more familiar to a Rip Van Winkle from 1898 than one from the present. Laundry is hung on a line, grass mowed with a motorless push mower, or cropped short by goats and sheep, kept for meat, milk and wool. Sprawl didn't exist in 1898 because it hadn't happened yet, and doesn't exist in 2102 because it proved uneconomical as oil depleted. The ability to fly anywhere in the world didn't exist yet in 1898, and will have disappeared by 2102 due to energy and environmental constraints. The grass between the runways is now farmed and the runways themselves are covered with photovoltaic panels. Many of the inventions used in 1898 that largely fell out of use by 2000 are back in 2102: McCormick's reaper, electric trolley systems, windmills, regional passenger rail systems, hydropowered factories and mills. And like the last century, many of the inventions of the 20th century will come into their own in the 21st. Solar panels, the United Nations, safe and effective birth control, passive solar heating, high quality insulation, and highly efficient processes and equipment developed in the 20th century will play a greater role in the 21st century as we find our way to a sustainable economy.

Final thoughts

It is likely that some version of the things I have outlined in my guess as to how the world will look in 2102 are required in order to fit our numbers and appetite into this finite world. I make the assumption that we will avert catastrophe. This reminds me of the economist who fell down a well. To get out, he assumed he had a ladder. We won't avert catastrophe by continuing with things as they are, or by assuming that change will come in time. We will avert catastrophe by taking a hard look at the circumstances we face, making choices, and following through with action.

We must change our economy to better align our personal and financial interests with our long term needs. Significant and sustainable change will not come through exhortation alone. Still, many of the changes I outline in the world 100 years hence could happen in your office tomorrow. If we make those changes today, we will be more likely to leave a livable planet to our children, undiminished in possibility and beauty. Very little of this vision of a sustainable future requires new technology - only imagination, leadership and commitment.

Contact: carlhenn@comcast.net

Beyond Peak website copyright © 2005, 2006 Mick Winter