The intellectual, academic, author, analyst Vaclav Smil directs his attention to the big challenges facing society and the world at large. He has addressed (among others) a broad range of topics, from the economics of meat production/consumption, the consequences of the oil/engine economy, the catastrophic potential of anthropogenic biosphere change, and the intrinsic relationship between industrial activity and the production of a middle class. Smil suggests that Globalization's dynamic on labour, the relocation of manufacturing jobs from economies like the U.S.A. to China, Brazil and others, is not balanced by an increase in knowledge work in the U.S. because IT jobs (for example) are fungible. "Can IT jobs replace the lost manufacturing jobs? No, of course not. These are totally fungible jobs. You could hire people in Russia or Malaysia - and that’s what companies are doing." ( a link to the interview in Wired Magazine ) Fungible is a term in law for goods that can be...