The U.S. economy is mired in debt and disease, but it's still addicted to oil, so the U.S. continues to desperately pump away, trying to "energize" its way out of poor economic planning and outright negligent government spending. But along comes China, tapping the U.S. on the shoulder and saying, "Hey, it's our turn to pump some of this oil." That's what's happening on the world stage today.

I include coverage of energy topics in CounterThink because it's an issue that's just as important as health or the environment. In fact, it's all intertwined. Without energy conservation and the development of renewable, Earth-friendly energy resources, we will never be a healthy nation. And unless we get away from coal-fired power plants and combustion engines (an outdated technology), we'll never be able to protect the planet enough to prevent an environmental disaster.

Any nation that isn't thinking hard about the future of energy -- and doing something about it -- will not easily survive the next hundred years, I predict. And that includes the U.S., a nation whose future is all but written in stone just from the debt burden alone. Hopefully, though, we will witness a breakthrough in solar technology, cold fusion, hot fusion, methane hydrates or fuel cells that will save us from the energy future we probably deserve.