The recent damage caused by Hurrican Katrina in the US Gulf states is reeiving more than it’s fair share of TV time. I have written before that America will only wake up to it’s own behaviour and contribution to Global Warming when they have a few serious natural disasters to contend with.

As the earth warms, the pressure cooker effect will make storms and earthquakes more and more violent. This is a natural consequence of increasing the temperature, and conseqently the pressure, in what is a semi-closed system. The people of New Orleans are paying for all those gas-guzzling miles they drive to the levee. They will continue paying in just this way until man’s contributon to global warming is stopped and reversed.

This will demand the greatest change to economics since the establishment of limited companies with personal property rights. The change is in effect the dis-establishment of those rights. This form of corporate person, established under law, allows individuals to gain all the “profit” from their activities without paying the consequent price, without taking responsability for the downside.

“Enough is enough” will become the motto of the future, not just politically but personally as the establishment of an economics based on sufficiency on a personal and political scale takes hold. Many are doing this already in small but simple ways, cutting their usage of limited natural resources and living lives with small footprints.

When America does this and forgets it’s “we must control the world or the world will control us” mentality, sanity may begin to reign in the world. The problem with super-powers is that they are just a bunch of ordinary humans with big guns - It doesn’t make them right.