March 12, 2008 Episode

David B. Coe the award-winning, and critically acclaimed, author of nine fantasy novels (some of which have been translated into no less than six languages, including Russian, German, Dutch, and French) is our featured guest today.

David has a doctorate in American history from Stanford University, and he enjoys nature photography, bird and butterfly watching, and playing guitar.

David talks about Wikipedia, e-books and Amazon's Kindle, Green investment funds, solar power, his belief that clean coal is decades away, and he once again emphasizes that if his fellow environmentalists are going to get serious about global warming they will have to find a way to embrace nuclear power.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the March 12, 2008 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 82 minutes]

David also describes the changing corporate climate concerning environmentalism. Being Green has become the In Thing for corporate marketing. Wal-Mart has become a leader in promoting Green. Saving the environment is now widely seen as good business.

He explains why official decisions concerning which birds are, and are not, defined as separate species are based mostly on science, but also partly on politics, emotionalism, local tradition and sentimentality. An avid bird and butterfly watcher, he describes the trends in both, and mentions that butterflies are like the canary in the coal mine: they are an early indicator of damage to an ecosystem.

He also responds with surprising candor to the host's question: For each of the current candidates (John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton) what is the best and worst things that would probably happen during their presidency?

Others who provide comment, feedback or receive an honorable mention in this episode include: Randal L. Schwartz, Shaun Ferrell, Rich Sigfrit, Mur Lafferty, Tee Morris, Khannea Suntzu and Extropia DaSilva (for her blog post entitled Snowcrashing into the Diamond age).