If scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proved beyond sane doubt that we were destroying the planet, we might feel obliged to try to do something. There's no market-pull for the health of the ozone layer. It's a time of learned helplessness. The energy crisis is history. Synthetic fuels got nowhere.
Fuller domes are uninhabitable.
We're not running out of key mineral resources. The population is expanding dreadfully but not visibly exploding. It slunk off with the same embarrassed reticence as its big, shiny futuristic cousin, the Space Race. The biggest political idea on the planet in 1995, the vision that people want to live for and die for, the vision they truly believe in their heart of hearts, is reactionary Islam. We flatter ourselves when we think we're putting an end to history.