The worst happens, and life still goes on.

But the Earth holds ghosts, even of entire nations.

Nobility is expensive, nonproductive, and parasitic, siphoning away too much of society’s energy to satisfy its frivolous cravings.

The fact that the infrastructure is falling apart is not necessarily because it's built poorly. The New York City subways were built in 1903. The fact that they're still running at all is an enormous success. The fact that New York City's bridges have held up as long as they have is extraordinary, and the engineers didn't have computers to tell them about tolerance. They overbuilt these things - traffic on them is like an ant on an elephant.

Without us, Earth will abide and endure; without her, however, we could not even be.

In a future that portends stronger and more-frequent hurricanes striking North America's Atlantic coast, ferocious winds will pummel tall, unsteady structures. Some will topple, knocking down others. Like a gap in the forest when a giant tree falls, new growth will rush in. Gradually, the asphalt jungle will give way to a real one.

One of the reasons I think the population question is important, if we want to be as green as possible, any of our energy that is truly renewable is limited. Solar and wind are intermittent and they're so diffuse, it's difficult to harness them in a significant way. But one thing we could be doing is making it a law (like it is in Israel and Cyprus) to take every building eight stories or under and heat all of the water in those buildings with solar energy. It's absolutely simple and cheap technology.