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Well, we had a good run.

Last year, in a fit of journo-satirical inspiration, we gamed out an enviro-athletic competition based on the pseudo-serious question: What will end the world first, Global Warming or Peak Oil? We called it The Ultimate Race. And after an offseason hiatus, the race is on, again. For how long? Well, that's kind of the point of the whole exercise, isn't it?

THIS WEEK: CAPITALISM'S CREATIVE DESTRUCTION!

One of the great things about the Ultimate Race was that it promised to be an ugly, enduring and utterly entertaining rivalry, a la Auburn vs. Alabama, UCLA vs. USC and Limbaugh vs. 75% of the United States.

There was just no telling when the world would end. And though the Ultimate Race took a break from coverage, the winter competition continued apace, with plenty of highlight reel stuff. Oil prices collapsed, sure, but that meant petro-tyrants like Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Dick Cheney were short of cash, which meant they had no money to invest in extraction equipment. And on Election Day, even the Empress of Drill Baby Drill got drilled (seemed to be a lot of that in the household). Which meant America's vast-untapped-actually-not-really-that-large offshore oil reserves would have to wait.

And that was great news for Peak Oil! With low, low prices, there's no profit motive, which means no reason to explore for more oil, which means sooner or later, an inevitable demand spike will be met by crippling shortages, leading to the end of civilization!

But Global Warming wasn't going to be outdone, and was actually more impressive, when you look inside the numbers, which is the way we live now. This winter may have seemed cold, if you were a fan of the Bowdoin Polar Bears or Plattsburgh State Cardinals -- and really, what right-thinking American isn't? But the average U.S. temperature from December through February was half a degree above normal! And don't even start on Down Under, because that's a lot of prepositions. The Wilkins Ice Shelf crumbled like A-Rod's reputation, and Australia contained its wildfires about as well as Roger Clemens put out his. To complete the bad metaphor fest (because, like celebrity deaths, they always seem to come in threes), Global Warming was en fuego!

And yet …

It was all futile. Of course, it's always all futile, but even moreso this time. Why? Like we have to spell it out. Since the last Ultimate Race post, a new horseman of the apocalypse rode in. Name of Stanford. And Madoff. And AIG. A group of intimidating roughnecks who spent big money on golf and cricket, and scammed team owners, and plastered their names on the chests of hot Portuguese dudes. The "bankers" and "fund" "managers" and "investors" ushered in a collapse more thrilling and devastating than anything Al Gore or our friends at our all-time favorite blog The Oil Drum could come up with. That's saying something, since Al Gore used to smoke pot and some of the Oil Drum guys are way into Mad Max. The bankers conjured up things nobody thought they'd ever see in this lifetime, things even crazier than a Phillies-Rays World Series or a president with a sinister J.

Peak Finance left Peak Oil in the dust, and its ensuing financial meltdown rendered Global Warming, yes, lukewarm. We could say tepid, but we have less experience spelling that.

In any case, it all proves that nobody can know the future. You put your money on the favorites to end the world, say, the GOP or the Giants, then somebody goes off half-cocked, and next thing you know you're blindsided by birdshot, or the Cardinals. It happens.

That's why pondering the fate of the earth is so exciting! One year it's nuclear holocaust, the next it's economic collapse. One year LeBron and Kobe are the best players in the world, the next year it's LeBron and Kobe. But here's one thing you can take to the bank, and which the bankers can never take from you: Live life to the fullest, because like the Ultimate Race, you can never be sure of your existence!

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