Word: mightly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...might think that, knowing what causes greenhouse warming, it would be an easy matter to predict how hot the world will be in the next century. Unfortunately, things aren't that simple. The world is a complex place, and reducing it to the climatologist's tool of choice--the computer model--isn't easy. Around almost every statement in the greenhouse debate is a penumbra of uncertainty that results from our current inability to capture the full complexity of the planet in our models...
...Temperatures during the Ice Age were 5[degrees]C (10[degrees]F) cooler than they are now, and there was a series of incidents during which global temperatures changed as much as 10[degrees]F in a matter of decades. If that were to happen now, expanding oceans might flood coastlines and generate fiercer storms. And as weather patterns changed, some places could get wetter and some dryer, and the ranges of diseases could expand. Civilization has seen--and endured--such changes in the past, but they may come much more swiftly this time, making it harder to withstand...
...brink of biological extinction--more than 100 popular species of food fish, including Nassau groupers, Chilean sea bass, orange roughy and cod. What we don't know, what we'll never know, is how many undiscovered species have been eradicated along the way. What creatures, great and small, might have contained genetic or chemical secrets that could have saved lives or improved them, conquered diseases or averted them...
...suppose if wisdom and serenity accompanied the extra years we'd gain by self-denial, it might be worthwhile. But old age does not always bring with it sagacity and peacefulness (see Strom Thurmond). To the contrary, the so-called golden years are just an opportunity for drugmakers, insurance companies and medical facilities to take turns mugging our elders, like so many bullies stealing lunch money...
...cloning carries serious side effects. Dolly the sheep, it turns out, has prematurely aged cells, probably attributable to the fact that she is the biological extension of an animal that was already an adult. Human clones could have the same problem--plus cloning-related mental or behavioral defects that might not be apparent in a sheep...