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The computers assume nothing. Watt's projections indicate that the world's estimated 2,100 billion barrels of oil reserves will be depleted around the year 2000. (One reason: a tremendous per capita increase in jet travel.) In response to intense demands for more energy, the coal reserves will be used up next. By then, atomic energy may or may not take up the slack. "If it turns out there isn't enough atomic power," says Watt, "the carrying capacity of the world will suddenly drop from somewhere between 10 billion and 20 billion people to something between 1 billion and 4 billion. This simply means starvation and perhaps violent wars between the haves and have-nots."
Desperate Need. The future looks brutish, nasty and short, but Ken Watt is determined to change it. A tall, music-loving (Prokofiev, Bartók, Oliver Nelson) 40-year-old, he is so busy learning, lecturing and testifying these days that he seldom gets to see his wife and two daughters. "I am a revolutionary who is trying to operate within institutional frameworks," he says. His recommended steps toward reform include:
> Legalizing abortion in every state.
> Persuading Congress to modify income tax provisions for dependents so that deductions would apply only to the first two children.
> Emphasizing careers instead of children as a source of personal and emotional satisfaction for women.
>Creating pollution-free, high-speed, interurban rail systems to conserve fossil fuel and enhance efficient travel.
> Urging local governments to buy and preserve open land around cities.
Above all, Watt is determined to get better data for his computers: "One problem is that things we desperately need to measure haven't ever been measured. We don't have a good understanding, for instance, of how far out in the atmosphere particles from air pollution are going, or what they are doing to the weather." With fuller data, Watt's computer models will give scientists and politicians the information they need to plan intelligently and realistically.