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Here is an article by Russell Frank. Russell is a writer for many newspapers

I am in a place so nearly perfect it’s obnoxious to even talk about it. Picture any cliché screen saver or calendar photo of a tropical beach: the near-white sand, the leaning palms, the seawater shading from swimming-pool blue close to shore to navy blue beyond the reef. Imagine the magic-fingers feel of the breeze on such a beach. Cue “The Girl from Ipanema.” Ask yourself why in the world do humans live anywhere else?

I am sitting on this Mexican beach watching kitesurfers tack and, heaven help me, I am thinking: We’re doomed.

Maybe it’s my visit to the Mayan ruins at Tulum.

Or maybe it’s the flimsy end-of-the-decade issue of Time magazine I paged through when I got up this morning with its reminders of the 2000 election and 9/11 and Katrina and tsunami and earthquake and Iraq and Afghanistan and the global economy and global warming.

Or maybe it’s just the yummy but undercooked tamales I bought from a street vendor on the way to the beach.

As apocalyptic visions go, this one’s as benign as the breeze. I don’t see a whirlwind destroying the planet. I don’t even see the human race dying off. Rather I see us dying back — a kind of cosmic pruning whereby an exhausted earth sustains a smaller and less resource-devouring human population while it repairs and replenishes itself.

Arguments about the human prospect tend to revolve around human intelligence. The optimists have faith in our capacity for technological innovation: We don’t need to change the way we live to reduce our consumption of natural resources. We just need to develop new extraction and processing techniques that enable us to both tap new resources and tap existing ones more efficiently and more sustainably.

According to this line of thinking, the answer to American dependence on other people’s oilfields isn’t to turn down the thermostat; it’s to develop our own oilfields while allowing the power companies to continue to burn coal and spin turbines and split atoms so they can generate the profits they need to invest in the search for new energy sources.

The pessimists worry that we’re not smart or nimble enough to solve our problems before they overwhelm us. Maybe the human tendency to think about short-term needs and gratifications was a viable survival strategy when there were fewer of us. Now, as the human population burgeons and more and more of us participate in the global economy, consumption threatens to outpace regeneration and innovation.

According to this line of thinking, the most powerful stakeholders in the global economy, from the business tycoons to the politicians whose campaigns are bankrolled by the tycoons, are the least likely challengers of the status quo, which means that the public will never get called upon to make the sacrifices that will need to be made to head off ecological disaster. Change can bubble up from below, but we’re probably too enthralled with our games and toys to get off our duffs.

The vision of the kitesurfers skimming down the sea lanes of the ancient Mayans marries the two views. The kite, harness and board of the kitesurfer – simple, elegant, eminently suited to the purpose—are a testament to human ingenuity and the spirit of adventure. At the same time, the gear is the perfect embodiment of human ingenuity in the service of amusement.

Far be it from me, a vacationer on the Mayan Riviera, to condemn amusement. But as we devote more and more of our time and attention and brainpower to the pursuit of pleasure, it feels more and more like we are dancing on the edge of a cliff. The Mayan calendar is coming to the end of a cycle at the end of 2012. I don’t see civilization collapsing in the next two years, but I can see where eventually – in a few decades? a few centuries? a few millennia?  – environmental pressures will kill most of us off. Our cities will be as silent as the ruins of Tulum and Chichen Itza. That’s the bad news.

The good news: The lovely, resilient Earth will heal and we, bold and ingenious kitesurfers that we are, will develop from the simple to the complex all over again.

Which means that some lucky-so-and-so may once again be able to come down from the frozen north at the end of one year and the beginning of the next and drink too many cervezas and dip too many chips into too many bowls of guacamole and spend too much time in the sun gazing out at the ancient Mayan sea lanes considering the future in light of the present and the past.

Russell Frank
Russell Frank worked as a reporter, editor and columnist at newspapers in California and Pennsylvania for 13 years before joining the journalism faculty at Penn State in 1998. He roots for the Yankees, plays blues guitar and harmonica (badly), bikes and hikes for physical exercise and does The New York Times crossword puzzle for mental exercise. He is, by academic training, a folklorist (Ph.D., UPenn), which means, when you strip away all the academic jargon, that he loves a good story. His views and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Penn State University.
More articles by Russell Frank

There are so many places that you can choose to go for a holiday. One of the more popular holiday places is that of Cancun in Mexico. This is a very beautiful country to visit. You will find that Cancun travel has may interesting things for you to do and to see. While you are in Cancun you will mostly stay in the hotel zone. This is the region in Cancun where tourists stay.

Now when you start your vacation you will either have to make your own reservations or go by a holiday package. Regardless of the method of travel when you arrive in Cancun you should get your hotel room reservations sorted out. Once you are in your rooms relaxing you can decide what you are going to be doing for the duration of your stay.

This is important because you will need to plan your Cancun travel schedule so that you see everything that you want without feeling rushed.

The next day you will be feeling more relaxed so you should find out the best way to see the city. This brief overview will let you see the more important scenes that are in the city.

You will also be able to find the best shopping destinations in the city from your taxi driver. As you stop at each of the places on your sightseeing trip find out more about that place from various brochures.

Now that it is nearing lunchtime return back to the hotel for lunch and a rest. The next item on your holiday schedule is that of relaxing on the beach and swimming in the ocean. So after a delicious buffet meal you head to your room to rest and to plan what you will do in the evening. Since you have only a limited time you should see as much as you can of the whole of Cancun.

The next day you can arrange with the hotel for your family to visit Chichen Itza on your Cancun travel list. This is a very interesting city. It used to be a commercial and a religious city. For reasons that baffle archeologist the city was abandoned. Did you know that in Chichen Itza there is a structure that is called EL Castillo?

This interesting place has four sides to the building and each face has 91 steps. All of these steps added together plus the 1 at the summit equal 365. Now what do you think the Mayans used this building for?

Now if you are really interested in seeing some interesting things in your Cancun travel you should arrange for tour to Coba which is home to the largest pyramid in the Yucatan Peninsula.

With so little time to see everything you will need to come back on a longer holiday. Without more time your Cancun travel diary will be missing many wonderful things. So why wait, book your next vacation in Cancun, Mexico and explore all that is Cancun.

Bowe Packer provides free information on a variety of topics. Looking to travel? Visit his Cancun site and get free information on Cancun resorts and much, much more.

Cancun has plenty of warn beaches and beautiful weather all year long, but it is more than just a place to have fun, because you will find a trip to Cancun to be relaxing so why not go to a Cancun Spa.

You will want to make sure that your relaxing vacation is something that you will be able to really able to enjoy the Cancun Spa treatment. The spas will be relaxing and you’ll have a wonderful time before you leave the country. There are going to be perfect moments of the trip to skip over to a spa and use it for some quality time. [Read more…] about Cancun Spas and Massages

First of all based on many e-mails I have received I want to comment that our area of Mexico, that is the SOUTHEAST MEXICO including all of the Yucatan Peninsula was not affected by Hurricane Alex. We have toured the beaches from Bacalar to Cancun and there is NO DAMAGE from the passing of Hurricane Alex or remnants of him before or after development.

Current Conditions:  Although the famous Weather Channel reports RAIN everyday it is not the case but of course this time of year you can expect because of the tropical waves and warm sea surface temperatures isolated afternoon or evening showers or thundershowers.   [Read more…] about Hurricane Alex and Cancun