An interesting review of Future Shock and how prescient Toffler's insights have become. However, he failed to predict, and most of us are still in denial about, the huge monkeywrench that has been hurled into our present global civilization and our future plans and dreams. I refer, of course, to the rapid, unanticipated acceleration of global heating (enough of this anodyne "climate change" euphemism!) from the cumulative carbon emissions that our fossil-fuel-dependent global civilization continues to spew into the atmosphere, and the disruptive consequences we have already seen all over the planet.

And this is only the beginning. What happens when our crops, which depend on a predictable climate, have withered and died due to higher temperatures, droughts, and floods, destroying our global agricultural infrastructure (which is utterly dependent on fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and fossil fuels, as well)? What happens when reservoirs (like Lakes Mead and Powell) dry up, denying both water and electricity to vast urban sprawl in the deserts of the Southwest, as well as in the Middle East and China? Billions will be out of food, very quickly, and chaos will erupt everywhere. So much for "the future" we have all envisioned!

The only solution to this global predicament I can see is massive relocalization of commerce, cottage industry, and food-growing. The global electronic infrastructure will still have an important role in rapidly disseminating the information and skills that people will need to grow gardens, grow community, and grow awareness--of the REAL future we all face, whether we like it or not.