Environment

The recently released summary of the fourth report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wasn't pleasant reading. Temperature will rise 3.2 to 7.8 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100; sea levels could rise 7 to 23 inches, and perhaps an additional 4 to 8 inches if melting of the Greenland ice sheet and Antarctica's Larsen ice shelf continue at current rates; it's likely that the strong hurricanes experienced since 1970 have been produced by global warming; and more drought and severe storms will occur. This global warming is "very likely" (meaning with 90 percent certainty) caused by human activity and will continue long into the future no matter what steps are taken.

A pending merger in the cotton-seed industry is prompting sharp legal and environmental criticisms of biotechnology in US agriculture.The proposed merger would fuse the world's largest seed company, Monsanto, with one of the country's leading cotton-seed firms, Delta and Pine Land. Announced last year, the deal is now awaiting antitrust clearance from the Justice Department.

In a mixture of the titles of the "Citizens of the World" and the "Friends of the Earth" - the representatives of 40 governments speaking as the "Citizens of the Earth" called on February 2, 2007 for an improved UN system of ecological governance.

Since coming into office in 2001, George W. Bush, his administration, and his supporters (mainly ideological religious groups and corporate powers) have waged an unprecedented attack on science. Broadly speaking, these attacks have focused on debunking scientific conclusions relating to evolution, health care (i.e., stem cell research), and perhaps most strikingly, the environment. It is in the realm of the environment that the administration's policies will have the most lasting damage. A plethora of articles have documented the Bush administration's systemic weakening of important environmental policies and even their agencies, the stacking of commissions with people directly from the business world hell bent on the bottom line, and the silencing of our nation's top scientists.