A HARD RAIN IS GOING TO FALL: The End of the Automotive-Petroleum Age Kirt Sechooler                                                                                                               March, 1997 NEWS NOTES: Geneva, July 9, 1996, Xinhua News Agency: "Insurance Companies warned here on Tuesday of enormous economic costs if global actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions come too slowly." Geneva, July 18, 1996, Reuters: "Key world powers, led by the United States and the European Union pledged Thursday to fight global warming by working for an early accord reducing gas emissions produced by oil and coal use." In an essay entitled the  End of Industrialism and the Organizational Structure , we stated that at the very beginning of the American Industrial Revolution, some two hundred years ago, the United States was a nation of approximately four million people, free and slave, the overwhelming majority of whom lived in rural circumstances. Additionally, w