Invasive Speices and Global Warming working together?

Invasive species problem to grow
Climate change will accelerate the wipe out of native species

As the Earth's climate heats up, invasive species will hold the advantage over native plant species in spreading across the countryside, according to a new study.
Reed Canary grass seems benign in its native Europe, growing quietly and staying put in one place. But now in the United States, it is boisterously pushing other species out of its way on a growing frenzy.
Jane Molofsky is a professor of plant biology at the University of Vermont, and the strange inter-continental change in behaviour caught her attention. Her study suggests that invasive species like the grass have an inherent advantage to out-grow native species.
The grass has been brought to the United States from France, to Finland, and all the way out to the Czech Republic. As a result, the grass had a geographically diverse bank of genetic material to combine and form a new, super species of grass.
"It's not that you're taking the ones in France and moving them to the US and they're suddenly invasive," Molofsky said in a press release, "its that you move some plants, and then you move some from somewhere else and they recombine here to form something better, genetic superstars."
Farmers introduced the grass to the United States in the mid-19th century. They prized it for its ability to feed livestock and prevent erosion. But after years of interbreeding with other Reed Canary species, the grass is considered a weed in 10 states.
As the climate changes, more invasive species will likely take off in the same way, says Molofsky. The problem is that they have genetic programming that allows them to thrive in a multitude of environments, while genetically-meek native species only have experience in one.

source: http://environmentalism.suite101.com/article.cfm/invasive_species_problem_to_grow


This article, isn't as shocking as it could be, however, it means that as the climate changes more native species will die out.

The world has never seen such freezing heat

Since we just ended a chapter and we haven't started really started the packet that Dr. Singh handed out to us on Friday, I thought I could post this article. Something probably way off topic from what we are about to learn.




My father caught me doing my outline on environmental science today. He asked me what is the most controversial topic that we talk about in this class. I honestly didn't know what to say (since I barely talk in class). I told him global warming. He started laughing (being a republican and all -_-) and showed me this article.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/11/16/do1610.xml
The world has never seen such freezing heat
By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 16/11/2008

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.
A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

If there is one scientist more responsible than any other for the alarm over global warming it is Dr Hansen, who set the whole scare in train back in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Again and again, Dr Hansen has been to the fore in making extreme claims over the dangers of climate change. (He was recently in the news here for supporting the Greenpeace activists acquitted of criminally damaging a coal-fired power station in Kent, on the grounds that the harm done to the planet by a new power station would far outweigh any damage they had done themselves.)

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

Another of his close allies is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, who recently startled a university audience in Australia by claiming that global temperatures have recently been rising "very much faster" than ever, in front of a graph showing them rising sharply in the past decade. In fact, as many of his audience were aware, they have not been rising in recent years and since 2007 have dropped.

Dr Pachauri, a former railway engineer with no qualifications in climate science, may believe what Dr Hansen tells him. But whether, on the basis of such evidence, it is wise for the world's governments to embark on some of the most costly economic measures ever proposed, to remedy a problem which may actually not exist, is a question which should give us all pause for thought.



I don't know about you, but I found this interesting.
Or in other words, I felt that I need to post something here to get extra credit and just wasted 10 minutes of your life by reading this article. :]

India Visit Blog

I think it was Craig who said he has not seen anything good from India. I went to visit India this summer and maintained this BLOG on my india visit, it may not have all the better part of India that I talk about, but it has some cultural parts. The BLOG reads from the bottom to the top. Here is the link. It is an open BLOG, if you want to comment you can, you don't need to be an author.

http://navdeepindiavisit.blogspot.com/

Population Clocks

I cannot resist to post these new population links.

The Earth Clock link with so many good numbers running at the same time:

http://www.cosmosmith.com/population_clock.htm

This is the population predictor link, very scary:

http://www.cosmosmith.com/population_predictor.htm

This is another clock with some awesome numbers on energy and everything else:

http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks2.htm

The Eyes

Whenever I go to India, my favourite past time is to shoot pictures. I have a mind set for "animal" and "nature" photography, but for the last few years I have developed this big interest for "Indian Slums". I drive to these areas, walk in and shoot pictures non-stop. Most of the times it is a gut-wrenching experience. Here is a picture that I took a few years ago. The girl who is sitting on the cot seems to be less than twenty, and pay attention to the number of kids on the cot! Her eyes seem to be telling a long story, that is very easy to read!

The Ignored Horror!

I think all of us are living in a dazed reality, thinking that nothing is wrong with this planet and nothing is wrong with us. We have books filled with Alexander the Great taking armies across the World carrying swords and shields. There is something wrong with that picture. The first humans when started to use the metallurgy, made a destructive statement that we are going to mess with the core elements of this planet. This is a beautiful planet that can boast of something miraculous called life. But for the last couple of hundered years there is one species that is bent on killing the rest. Our planet is a middle age planet, half of its life is gone (5 Billion) and the other half is left. If this planet has to live and support life, it is in the dire need to get rid of the one species that is causing the most damage, and that one species is us. The humans, the smartest species that is making the dumbest decisions. It seems if we continue on this path we will consume and destroy everything. The question that we have to ask ourselves is---can we do something or is it too late?

Global warming getting political cold shoulder in U.S. amid economic woes

WASHINGTON - The global economic crisis has thrown a political chill over one of the main initiatives under consideration in the United States to combat global warming: the so-called cap-and-trade plan.Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate, and both presidential candidates, continue to rank tackling global warming as a chief goal next year.But the focus on stabilizing the economy probably will make it more difficult to pass a law to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At the very least, it will push back when the reductions would have to start.As one Republican senator put it, the green bubble has burst.
"Clearly it is somewhere down the totem pole given the economic realities we are facing," said Tom Williams, a spokesman for Duke Energy Corp., an electricity producer that has supported federal mandates on greenhouse gases.Duke is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an association of businesses and non-profit groups that has lobbied Congress to act.Just months ago, chances for legislation passing in the next Congress and becoming law looked promising. The presidential candidates support mandatory cuts and a Democratic majority is ready to act on the problem after years of the Bush administration resistance.But the most popular remedy for slowing global warming, a mechanism know as cap-and-trade, could put further stress on a teetering economy.Under such a system, the government would establish a market for carbon dioxide by giving or selling credits to companies with operations that emit greenhouse gases. The companies can then choose whether to invest in technologies to reduce emissions to meet targets or instead buy credits from other companies who have already met them.In an interview with The Associated Press, Representative Rick Boucher (D-Va.), said that in light of the economic downturn, a bill that would give polluters permits free of charge would be preferable."The first way we can control program costs is by not charging industrial emitters," said Boucher, who released a first draft of a bill this past week with the chairman of the House energy and commerce committee, Representative John Dingell ( D-Mich.). Giving away right-to-pollute permits was one of the options.Other Democrats, however, see a cap-and-trade bill - and the government revenues it would generate from selling permits - as an engine for economic growth. Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama supports auctioning off all permits, using the money to help fund alternative energy.
http://www.metronews.ca/edmonton/world/article/124810

source: http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/38393



I thought this article would be interesting, seening that presidential elections are coming soon, maybe this will give a a perspective of what's to come?

Which biome a dream home?

When I think about all the biomes there is this question that always comes to my mind, which biome I would chose to be my dream home, if the choice is given to me.

I think my choice will be Temperate grassland. Tropical grassland could almost tie but I am just afraid of those predators with big canines. Forests are not the places where I would like to live, they block too much of the sunlight and the natural view. Tundra is out of the question, just too cold for my old bones.

So the choice is the temperate grassland, with a view that goes to the horizon. The sunrise and the sunsets are not hindered by anything. The open, flat area and with the sky and the Sun; and a small home that I will call mine.

What about you?

Charles Darwin

The fact that Charles Darwin was once a christian was very interesting to me. In fact he even attended a christian school and later when his mom died even lived at a christian school. He was even sent by the church to research and prove that God created the Earth. However, aboard the Beagle he claimed that he found evidence against the previous idea of creation by God. I'm sure you all know how I feel about evolution and if you don't I believe in creation by God. However, through this whole entire unit I have tried to stay positive and uncontroversial about the topic. His 1859 book, On the Orgin of Species is all about Darwin's theory about natural selection and evolution. The novel is supposed to explain all parts of evolution including plant evolution. I plan on reading the book someday so I will have more facts to back up my agrument. I think what is most important to pull away from this chapter is that we, as people, need to be tolerant about ideas and cultures that we don't agree with and we need to repect people to the fullest extent.

The "Missing Piece" in Evolution

I recently found this article on the internet because i wanted to have an informed stance on evolution, not just a biased, unsupported opinion. I've learned about the evidence supporting evolution of man, but no one talks about evidence opposing it, so here is some.

If you want to read more, here is the website address: http://www.allaboutscience.org/evolution-of-man.htm

Evolution Of Man -
Scientific EvidenceThe theory of evolution of man is supported by a set of independent observations within the fields of anthropology, paleontology, and molecular biology. Collectively, they depict life branching out from a common ancestor through gradual genetic changes over millions of years, commonly known as the "tree of life." Although accepted in mainstream science as altogether factual and experimentally proven, a closer examination of the evidences reveal some inaccuracies and reasonable alternative explanations. This causes a growing number of scientists to dissent from the Darwinian theory of evolution for its inability to satisfactorily explain the origin of man.

One of the major evidences for the evolution of man is homology, that is, the similarity of either anatomical or genetic features between species. For instance, the resemblance in the skeleton structure of apes and humans has been correlated to the homologous genetic sequences within each species as strong evidence for common ancestry. This argument contains the major assumption that similarity equals relatedness. In other words, the more alike two species appear, the more closely they are related to one another. This is known to be a poor assumption. Two species can have homologous anatomy even though they are not related in any way. This is called "convergence" in evolutionary terms. It is now known that homologous features can be generated from entirely different gene segments within different unrelated species. The reality of convergence implies that anatomical features arise because of the need for specific functionality, which is a serious blow to the concept of homology and ancestry.

Additionally, the evolution of man from ape-like ancestors is often argued on the grounds of comparative anatomy within the fossil record. Yet, the fossil record indicates more stability in the forms of species than slow or even drastic changes, which would indicate intermediate stages between modern species. The "missing links" are missing. And unfortunately, the field of paleoanthropology has been riddled with fraudulent claims of finding the missing link between humans and primates, to the extent that fragments of human skeletons have been combined with other species such as pigs and apes and passed off as legitimate. Although genetic variability is seen across all peoples, the process of natural selection leading to speciation is disputed. Research challenging the accepted paradigm continues to surface raising significant questions about the certainty of evolution as the origin of man.

ALSO: (This was not on the web page, but can be found in many other places)
Darwin stated in his book, "numerous successive modifications that cannot be explained by scientific evidence would break down my theory". Basically, this modification type has been found in many places, namely, the flagellum motor. The flagellum motor is like a propeller for the flagellum and consists of 25 different proteins. According to natural selection, these 25 different proteins should have all appeared on the flagellum gradually through means of natural selection. PROBLEM. There is absolutely no evidence of an in-between connector species of flagellum to prove natural selection to be true. The "numerous successive modifications" has been found.

Google search carbon-14 dating flaws... evidence of a "great flood" has also been found.

In regard to any scientific theory, people have to look at the evidence supporting it (or lack of it)AS WELL AS evidence opposing it before they can make an opinion in support of it.

Survival VS. Evolution

In class, we've been discussing about the concepts of "survival of the fittest" and evolution. Are these both the same ideas? or are they instead topics related to one another?

Evolution

Evolution is a theory of science, like any other theory (Cell theory, chromosome theory, and DNA theory). This theory is as valid as any other theory of science, it has been tested over and over again and it has been proven over and over again. The main problem with the theory is that it contradicts the religious origin idea. Most people don't want to think but just to follow. In the whole frenzy to follow, hoardes of people just denouce this theory being evil and not valid.

The most tragic commentary in our times is that people who sit at home and watch TV, use medications, listen to the iPODs have no problems with those gadgets or the products of science. Evolution theory is isolated, and branded evil but other scientific achievements are glofied and accepted.

The way of thinking and the human thought process does determine the course of life on this planet. What are we saying, the most intelligent species is not going to accept the choice scientific theory becasue it goes against or religious belief system. Are we questioning the both sides fairly?

Ecodiversity

It's, in essence, the subject of the unit we're studying in class right now. I wanted to know what everyone thinks about it, how far up it is on their priority list, and what possible solutions could be.

I, for one, think that it is an issue, albeit not a very serious one. True, it is still one that needs to be dealt with, it isn't as dire as, say, global warming or the population explosion. I think that we need to focus on things that can kill us before we focus on things that help us live.

However, I think that more national parks are part of the answer for solving this problem. As we know, it isn't necessary for us to only focus on protecting endangered animals, as entire ecosystems are at stake.

My Environmental opinions

Here is my report that I wrote for social study at BC during summer.
That's something about environment, so I post it right here.

Analysis of "The High Costs of Doing Nothing"

The article describes the environmental and economic problems of climate change. In environmental area, problems are extreme weather, increasing the size and intensity of forest fires, increasing the frequency and severity of flooding and drought, damaging crops and property, new exposure to pests, disasters and diseases, and so forth. In economic area, government have to raise budgets for the related departments fixing the frustrated outcomes and taxpayers have to pay the environmental bills. The author urges that the government should do something to fix the damaging outcomes and prevent the predictive disasters.
American government plays an important role on fixing and preventing the environmental problems of climate change. If the government do more work on it, not only benefit to the country, but also benefit to the whole world.
Government should work on business, the work is divided into two parts. First, deregulation over business. As the article mentions "energy-efficient economy is less than the costs of doing nothing", one way can reach energy-efficient economy---perfectly competitive market. According to economic theories, perfect competition reaches resources-efficiency, but monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly exist waste, especially monopoly. Because the companies in the perfectly competitive market under a heavy pressure, if one of them cannot reduce the costs as much as possible (reach or close the lowest costs in the market), then it faces the risk of collapse. But the other types of markets are less or not under the pressure of competition, so they don't have to survive by reaching the lowest costs. To encourage energy-efficient economy, government should promote perfect competition by lowing the barriers for companies to enter those markets. So, I support deregulation on business, giving more freedom to capital market.
Second, government should regulate the environmental area in varied industries. As the article mentions "clean energy can reduce the costs", all types of industries not only should use clean resources (including energy and productive materials), but also product clean wastes. However, the regulation of using clean resources and producing clean wastes by the government is not enough. Government also have to reduce and control the industries of heavy pollution, but I oppose moving those industries to other counties.
Through the article, I found Americans are still hesitant on environment-protective projects. I understand that executing those projects have to raise mass budgets and increase tax, both of the government and taxpayers suffer from financial problems. However, I support the view of the article "spending money now to mitigate and adapt to climate change is an investment." If we spend money now to support environmental projects, we only lose those money, but we can get a healthy environment. If we choose to spend money later (when the environment was destroyed), we not only have to pay much more money, but also suffer from miserable consequences of environmental problems. The costs of the second situation are so high---but don't forget, we can avoid.
I appreciate the environmental projects by Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, I think he has foresight. The health of the environment becomes worse and worse, climate change is only one of the environmental diseases, but we already suffer from many natural disasters and feel more miserable with the weather, especially in summer. More and more unusual things happen to us. Do you meet more and more spiders in summer? That's one of the consequences of climate change.
Government---should act.


Source:
The High Costs of Doing NothingA dirty little secret of climate change is that somebody wants us to pay much higher taxes and higher energy bills. But it's not the advocates of climate action. It's the other guys.Make no mistake: The costs of switching to clean energy and an energy-efficient economy are far less than the costs of doing nothing.A study released by the University of Maryland last October helps bring the cost issue into clearer focus. It concludes that the economic costs of unabated climate change in the United States will be major and nationwide.Climate change will damage or stress essential municipal infrastructure such as water treatment and supply; increase the size and intensity of forest fires; increase the frequency and severity of flooding and drought; cause billions of dollars in damages to crops and property; lead to higher insurance rates; and even increase shipping costs in the Great Lakes-St Lawrence seaway because of lower water levels. And that's just a sampling."Climate change will affect every American economically in significant, dramatic ways, and the longer it takes to respond, the greater the damage and the higher the costs," lead researcher Matthias Ruth told ScienceDaily.How big are those costs?Much more work is needed to quantify them, and the national Climate Change Science Program should give more emphasis to both the social and economic costs of local climate impacts. But recent experience gives an indication of how large the costs could be. The University of Maryland study puts the combined storm damages in the U.S. since 1980 at more than $560 billion, even though the impacts of climate change are far from fully felt. Various estimates project that the maintenance of Alaska's infrastructure will cost $10 billion; property damage from rising sea levels will cost as much as $170 billion by 2100; and upgrading drinking and water treatment facilities will cost up to $2 billion over the next 20 years. Two federal insurance programs also are a harbinger of pain. Since 1980, taxpayer exposure under the Federal Crop Insurance Program has increased 26-fold to $44 billion (PDF). Several of the predicted consequences of climate change -- drought, wildfires, extreme weather, new exposure to pests -- will make that liability much worse.Our liability under the National Flood Insurance Program will increase, too. Taxpayer exposure in that program has quadrupled since 1980 (PDF), approaching $1 trillion in 2005. The program had to borrow more than $17 billion from the Treasury to pay claims following Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, and it's likely that taxpayers will have to foot the bill."The national debate is often framed in terms of how much it will cost to reduce greenhouse gases, with little or no consideration of the cost of no response or the cost of waiting," the University of Maryland's lead researcher, Matthias Ruth, told ScienceDaily.We can expect the demagogues to continue stressing that carbon pricing will mean higher energy bills, while aggressive federal action will mean higher taxes. They will continue to argue that climate action will ruin the economy. We shouldn't let them get away with it.The truth is that spending money now to mitigate and adapt to climate change is an investment. Spending money later to cope with public health emergencies, drought, crop damage, and natural disasters is a waste.It's climate change, not climate action, that will break the economy and burden the nation's taxpayers, and that liability gets bigger every year we delay.

Music's effect on the Climate Crisis

We all know that music plays an important part in most all people's lives, but do you think it could do more to further issues, especially the global climate crisis? Now, as us music conesseurs will tell you, music that's too preachy is really awful, but it doesn't necissarily need to be preachy in order to get the point across. Any opinions? In what way can we use the arts to bring awareness to key issues?

Recycling Club

Our poster was about recycling today, and we got to thinking with Dr. Singh... We are going to start a recycling club if we can get enough people to join. Does anyone have any ideas of what we could do for the club or to start the club?

GLOBAL WARMING

assuming there is global warming, can we as Amercian's stop global warming???  yes or no.

and if we can, how long would it take, and what do we need to do specifically???

What "Global Warming" Really Means

Study says humans not heating up the planet
Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
December 11, 2007


A new peer-reviewed study disputes the claim of former Vice President Al Gore and other green activists that global warming is caused by human activity and constitutes a "planetary emergency."

The study -- conducted by climate scientists at the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama, and the University of Virginia -- finds that atmospheric warming patterns, or "fingerprints," over the last 30 years are not caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The report is published in the December issue of the International Journal of Climatology. Results from the study greatly contradict the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Dr. S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia -- and president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project -- says he is "fairly" sure that the current warming trend is due to changes in the activities of the sun. "The sun is constantly active, emitting particle streams that carry magnetic fields; and they in turn have an influence on the climate of the earth," he says.

Singer says he and other global warming skeptics have grown accustomed to claims that they are beholden to the oil and gas industry. "Of course that's not only untrue, but it's completely immaterial," says Singer. "In other words, we are using the data that is furnished by the IPCC. They are published, we use only published work. What we are basically doing is to make a comparison of model results and observations."

The report concludes that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant and therefore "attempts to control CO2 emissions are ineffective and pointless -- but very costly."

Facing A New Frontier

The earth is our home. It provides us with the natural resources that we need in order to survive and flourish. However, as our civilizations have advanced, so has our technology, population, and poverty number...and the land that was once abundant has become scarce, diseased, and polluted. Can we begin the road to life and protection?

Here's an idea. Why worry about the world's problems, when we can just go to the moon? That will solve all of our problems, right? We can start all over! New land, new life, new explorations, new reasons to visit the moon... Or would we rape the moon, just as we have destroyed the earth?

NASA is coming up with more reasons as to why we should continue travel to the moon (check out Lunar Exploration Objectives @ nasa.gov). It will help with our space exploration and provide for global partnerships. Machines and robotic vehicles are currently testing the living environment on the moon to prepare them for the future of "earthlings". Scientists believe that by the year 2020, we will have set up permanent colonies on the moon. After that, we take over Mars.

What do you think? Is it too risky? Are we going to deplete another environment on the moon? Or will this be one more step towards advancing the human race? Can we save the earth before we begin the process of moving to the moon? Or will we avoid population issues and continue to evacuate millions to the moon? When will we begin to conserve our resources, population, and hunger for MORE, MORE, MORE!?? Or is NASA really finding new and innovative ways to learn and grow as a specie.

Visit this site and watch the video on Human Civilization on the Moon.

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/on_demand_video.html?param=http://anon.nasa-global.edgesuite.net/anon.nasa-global/exploration/human_civilization_psa.ram&_id=&_title=Lunar%20Exploration%20Theme%3A%20Human%20Civilization&_tnimage=75

Human Footprint

Our footprint on this planet is scary. We are using more of the planet that we need. What can we do? Or what can you do to reduce your footprint on Earth? Give ideas, and be creative!!!

Sustainability?

One of the idea that is mind boggling is that we wonder about our sustainability on this planet. This planet is not going to be there for ever. Half of its life is gone and half of its life is left. The issues of human population, global warming, food production, energy crisis, and air pollution are just few of the main issues that we are facing to extend our life on this planet. There never was any species on our planet that was as intelligent as us. We are trying to control every aspect of the Earth and to our amazement we are finding out that it is not doable. It is a very fine balance and if you mess with it you will have to pay the price.

What can we do to sustain human life on this planet? What can you do as a person?

Just on a totally different line of thought, do we really have right to extend human life on Earth. I mean if our life means the death of every other species, do we really have the right?