Re: Gore's speech [was Re: Someone's copying the m.w. debating style]

Ejucaided Redneck wrote:

Thirty years ago, the scientist James Lovelock worked out that the Earth
possessed a planetary-scale control system which kept the environment
fit for life. He called it Gaia, and the theory has become widely
accepted. Now, he believes mankind's abuse of the environment is making
that mechanism work against us. His astonishing conclusion - that
climate change is already insoluble, and life on Earth will never be the
same again.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article338878.ece

The SFChronicle has no mention of Lovelock's article in the Independent, although it may catch up in the next day or two ... The Chronicle is running a series this week, written by Chronicle environment writer Jane Kay and photographed by Kat Wade, on global warming and how it is changing life along the coast. Sunday covered the polar bears in the Arctic. Monday dealt with coastal pools and fisheries in California. Today's article covers the Cabo Pulmo Reef in Baja.

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/01/15/MNG3FGMHML1.DTL>

From Sunday's coverage:

"Nature guides the lives of Arctic dwellers, and over thousands of years they've adapted to predictable seasons. Now things are changing at a rate perhaps too fast for the polar bear and many other species to adapt, Schliebe said.

"The current rate of loss of sea ice is likely to push the Arctic system into a climatic state not seen for at least a million years, scientists say, based on the evidence they see in ice cores and other natural records.

"But what happens in the Arctic affects the globe as a whole, according to computer models developed by an international body of scientists.

"The Arctic melt is expected to amplify the Earth's warming, as there is less sea ice to reflect sunlight back into space and more ocean to absorb solar energy.

"As mountain and land glaciers and the Greenland Ice *** melt, sea levels will rise, threatening low-lying populations around the world.

"Melting permafrost releases carbon dioxide, adding to the greenhouse gases trapping heat in the atmosphere.

"Fresher water flowing into the North Atlantic from the Arctic will change ocean temperatures and currents, which could disrupt the conveyor belt-like Gulf Stream and lower Europe's temperature, even as the rest of the world warms.

"Today we're witnessing the effects of climate change on the polar bear firsthand," Schliebe said.

"We believe these are harbingers of changes yet to come."

[...]

Not one word about this in the American press, so far as I can tell. One of the loveliest things about the Internet is free access to decent
news services.

This morning Google News is pretty empty when I search for any Lovelock stories in the States. No mention. Not even a mention saying, "This guy is nuts!"

--
Sal

Ye olde swarm of links: thousands of links for writers, researchers and the terminally curious <http://www.internet-resources.com/writers>
.