Ok, and now it's time for a bit of an environmental update. Firstly, researchers studying CO2 levels in the atmosphere report that the amount has expanded at an accelerated pace in the last year, leading to the highest levels thus far. The really scary part of that article is that
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that, if unchecked, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by 2100 will range from 650 to 970 parts per million. As a result, the panel estimates, average global temperature would probably rise by 2.7 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius) between 1990 and 2100.
That could be catastrophic for wildlife and plant life, not to mention for us. However, some scientists are now saying that global warming won't get bad enough to cause any problems. Great, right? Well, only if you don't consider that they're saying this because we may have 80% less oil than previously thought, which means that world production will peak in about 10 years. As far as I'm concerned, that's great news, because we really need to stop using those fuels even before then. The problem, of course, is that we don't yet have a viable fuel alternative to replace the fossil fuels with.
That means that if we did indeed run out of oil before getting these replacement systems into place, civilization as we know it would basically... well... collapse. That's fine and good for the rest of the world; the way we're abusing the planet it's simply a natural occurence for our system to collapse. It still isn't exactly a happy day, however.
