Future

When Gen. David H. Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker brief Congress this week, they will be hard-pressed to depict Iraq as moving toward stability in the wake of recent violence that sent deaths soaring to their highest level in seven months. Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's move against Shiite Muslim militias has revealed the gravity of the country's Shiite rivalries, just as U.S. forces are decreasing their presence.

Lance Melnik peered into the powder blue hydrogen car and turned to his 9-year-old daughter. By the time she drives, he told her, "These will be the cars on the road." His wife, Maria, wasn't buying any of it. The source of her skepticism? A yellow power cord hanging out of the next bumper over. The cars -- fuel cell, electric, hybrid, biodiesel -- were on display Saturday at the Alternative Energy and Transportation Expo, held at Santa Monica Airport.

By 2050, the planet's population will increase to 9 billion, with most people migrating to massive cities. Better vaccines will lessen the epidemic of HIV and offset flu pandemics. The global economy will quadruple. Demand for food, fresh water and raw materials for construction and heat will stretch natural resources to their limits, according to an analysis released Thursday.

Roger Nelson has a simple and unequivocal message for the people of the year 12006: Don't dig here. As chief scientist of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Nelson oversees a cavernous salt mine that is the first geological lockbox for the "fiendishly toxic" detritus of nuclear weapons production: chemical sludge, lab gear and filters laced with tons of radioactive plutonium. Nearly half a mile underground, workers push waste drums into crystalline labyrinths that seem as remote as the moon.

COASTLINE Community College was a higher-education pioneer in the late 1970s when it started developing television-based courses that students could take from anywhere as long as they had another innovation of the time, a video player. Today the Fountain Valley-based school remains a trendsetter, producing college classes whose lectures and study materials can be viewed on iPods, personal digital assistants and cellphones. But these days Coastline has plenty of company.

YOU can breathe now, Angelenos. Our future isn't "Blade Runner," after all -- although you might consider liquidating your local holdings before 2022, when the Big One, according to one line of fanciful expert thinking, is scheduled to do it for you. The History Channel asked seven professional architectural teams from L.A.

Re "American Waistlines Grow, Especially in Southern States," Aug. 30 I found your article on obese America a problem of medical crisis for millions now and in the future. Today's generation may indeed be called "the belly boomers." KEN JOHNSON \o7Pinon Hills, Calif. \f7\o7 \f7