Letters: The Geopolitics of Energy.

I'm a Californian living temporarily in Kiev, Ukraine. The "Issues 2007" Special Edition of NEWSWEEK was the best collection of current topics I've seen in years. I'll now reread it and then mail it to my adult children in southern California. Thank you!

Hugo Schmidt, D.D.S.

Kiev, Ukraine

I read through the issue with interest but was left disappointed. The focus of the numerous articles relates, with very few exceptions (biotech), to the use and prospect of oil, natural gas and nuclear power. Only in a tiny little corner is solar power mentioned. This is shortsighted and deals with resources that were important in the past but not for our future. In the long run, solar power will be the major source of energy in the future, and unless we develop the needed technological facilities to use this unlimited resource we will run out of steam.

Gerhard Dilschneider

Ulm, Germany

We have a saying: "never ask the bartender about the quality of wine." So, I'd avoid asking the opinion of Leonardo Maugeri, vice president of ENI, one of the biggest oil/gas multinationals in the world. He paints a bright future for oil--finding it, extracting it and consuming it--imagining that the only constraints for the industry are oil reserves and oil markets. Greenhouse gases, emitted by the oil that Maugeri is so eager to extract and burn, will push world climate out of stability and predictability. To make matters worse, given the complete disregard that the ENI manager seems to have for the simple, wise advice that science gives us, if we don't change course very quickly, climate destabilization will arrive exactly when the world population will need a very stable climate to feed more people.