Word: fossilize
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Throughout the past century humanity did everything in its power to dominate nature. We dammed earth's rivers, chopped down the forests and depleted the soils. Burning up fossil fuels that had been created over eons, we pumped billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the air, altering atmospheric chemistry and appreciably warming the planet in just a few decades. And as our population began the year 2000 above the 6 billion mark, still spreading across the continents, dozens of animal and plant species were going extinct every day, including the first primate to disappear in more than 100 years...
...appear to be the remains of lake beds dating back more than 3.5 billion years. Why should lakes be important on a planet that we already knew had rivers and seas? Because the newly discovered formations precisely resemble the sedimentary depressions that have yielded some of Earth's richest fossil lodes. If life once thrived in the relatively warm bath of Mars' early lakes, these geological layer cakes are where we are most likely to find its remains...
...Mainstream scientists have been warning for years that by burning oil, coal and other fossil fuels, humans have created a blanket of carbon gases that traps heat in our atmosphere and warms the planet. The last two years were the hottest in recorded history, and recent wild weather patterns suggest that this global warming will bring with it an ever expanding plague of economic and human catastrophes...
...Europeans think they have a problem with Washington, the OPEC countries may spring some nasty surprises. After all, for all the talk of win-win solutions in pioneering new technologies in the developing world, the losers in any move to cut back on fossil fuel consumption are inevitably going to be oil-producing countries. Nigeria has demanded financial compensation for oil-producing nations as part of any agreement to cut reliance on their leading export. And we all know how easily they can make their displeasure felt in an industrialized world still mostly dependent on their product...
...Europe, of course, is way ahead of the U.S. in terms of cutting its reliance on fossil fuels, but even then it remains doubtful whether many EU countries will achieve their own targets. So even if the Europeans fail to secure U.S. agreement on cuts, it?s unlikely to muster the will or the means to impose any penalties. In other words, saving the planet may just have to wait...