We have still to absorb the enormity of September 11^th, and we have no idea how the response over the coming months will affect our lives.  And yet, day by day, our lives continue, and we have to make decisions accordingly.

Incredible as it may seem, much goes on as if nothing happened, but there are ways in which society could change, perhaps should change.  Over the past decade technology has provided the means whereby life styles can be improved, but whilst embracing e-mails and text messages for trivia we have tended to ignore the real benefits they could bring.

We continue to assemble in enormous office complexes; we travel long distances to business meetings and social engagements; and we build huge community hubs: power stations, airports, freight depots, reservoirs, oil terminals.  Each of these aspects of modern living is vulnerable to terrorism.  One of the difficulties of a military campaign against regimes such as those of Saddam Hussein and The Taliban is the lack of obvious large vulnerable targets.  And yet we present international terrorists with all the targets they could wish for.

There is no need to revert to living in tents, but we could start to move away from high-density living.  Working from home is a viable option for a large number of people.  Video conferencing can deal with a large percentage of issues that are currently dealt with face to face.  Economies of scale are not so attractive when the costs of terrorist activity are factored into the equation.

No doubt we will always choose to travel for certain engagements, and for pleasure.  But reducing flights by a significant percentage will give space and time for airports to conduct proper security checks.  Reducing the need for office blocks will allow inner cities to create more parks and recreational areas.  Reducing travel of all kinds will improve the environment and lessen the economic importance of the volatile oil markets of the Middle East, the primary source of terrorist funds.  Improving the energy contribution from renewable sources reduces the need for large power stations.  Spreading living space out from the cities would allow us to have a greater number of smaller reservoirs.

There is talk of rebuilding the Twin Towers, as a defiant statement that we will not be cowed by terrorism.  There is also talk of creating a remembrance park on the site.  But the most fitting tribute to those who lost their lives would be a changed society that remembers September 11, 2001, as the last major disaster of all time.