In response to Mara Mitchell's insightful Guest Spot in the Feb. 14th Whatcom Independent,
Charles Antholt's letter to the editor (Feb. 21) argues essentially around one question: "Are we worse off?"

It seems to me that there are more important and fundamental questions to consider. Start with the following. How long can we sustain our current pattern of living? If the planet is worse off, does it bode well for the preceding question? Are we enjoying more than our fair share of the earth's resources at the expense of our children and grandchildren?

As Ms. Mitchell correctly points out, our current culture is built on the availability of cheap and abundant fossil fuels. As these become more expensive and scarce, how long will we be able to continue the party? Dr. Albert Bartlett likes to say that "the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." At what point does exponential growth collide with the realities of finite resources on a finite planet?

See Dr. Albert Bartlett's presentation on Arithmetic, Population, and Energy at globalpublicmedia.com. Then jump over to www.energybulletin.net/6969.html to see an excerpt of William Catton's work on carrying capacity. As he notes, "Posterity doesn't vote, and doesn't exert much influence in the marketplace. So the living go on stealing from their descendants."