long as the cash keeps flowing effortlessly from selling energy, there is insufficient urgency to their pleas, and reason for political and economic reactionaries to change their ways. Politically, without the power that it gains from its status as an energy superpower, Russia will be less able to project its power abroad.  This may well be good news to the subjects of regimes that depend on Russia, like the Syrian people, and to countries on the Russian rims that must contend day to day with its attempts to become involved in their internal affairs, like Georgia and the Baltic countries. Before Stalin killed much of the Russian intelligencia, it made decisive contributions to world culture and science.  I look forward to the day when Russia returns to the forefront of European literature, music, art, mathematics, and science. It should project its cultural power, rather than its military and energy based power. 4. Over the past months, bans of hydraulic fracturing for exploratory drillings for shale gas were enacted in Europe (France, Bulgaria, potentially Czech Republic and Romania): when and why has the industry failed to " earn its social license " (Fatih Birol, IEA Chief Economist) for shale gas operation? If unconventional gas is that promising for the people, why does it seem so difficult to gain public support? Will the recent IEA report "Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas" help? I perceive here many of the problems that I see in corporate America and the universities that