My big fear is that in the aggregate, nation states are no more intelligent—that is, no more capable of avoiding runaway feedback loops of mutual aggression—than alpha males of any other species, such as bighorn sheep squaring off to butt heads during the rutting season. If this is so, then our global industrial civilization has two grim choices: (1) a quick and ghastly mega-death from a nuclear holocaust or (2) a slow but accelerating die-off from climate fibrillation as the runaway concentration of CO2 and methane, triggered by fossil fuels, renders our planet uninhabitable for all except microbes. I’m not sure which option I prefer…but I hope I’m wrong! Miracles occasionally happen, after all.