Corvus,
That's an excellent example of the sensationalised reporting that I mentioned in my previous post. It's alarmist to the point where one cannot separate the metaphor and rethtoric from the facts. The following BBC News item gives some insight into the problem.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17826898It's a great pity really that such major issues are treated in such a sensationalized manner, because what then tends to happen is that those who have some understanding of scientific processes become skeptical, and the people promoting the issues tend to lose credibility.
The current fiasco with regard to human induced global warming is a great example. It seems, in my opinion, that in order to get public acceptance of a possible problem, distortions, inaccuracies and sensationalism have prevailed. I get a sense of a significant 'selection bias' occurring in the reportage, which of course all good scientists should be fine-tuned to detect.
An example of 'selection bias' would be the initial graphs of global warming that were presented in such a way as to obscure the fact that around a 1,000 years ago we had a similar period of warming known as the Medieval Warming Period. The graph has become notoriously known as the Hockey Stick, which I suspect may be just one glaring example like the tip of the iceberg, to use a metaphor.
I've heard claims from certain Climate Scientists that it is not known whether the MWP was a global phenomenon, or mainly a regional phenomenon. Other scientists claim that the current warming is more rapid than at any time during the past 20 million years.
Do you see the problem? If we are not sure to what extent the MWP was a global phenomenon, then are we not likely to be even less sure how our current warming period stacks up against the 200,000 segments of 100 year periods stretching back into the past?
If we are to solve a problem, it must be clearly defined in an unbiased way. Confusion reigns when people are the subject of a natural disaster, such as a major flood or cyclone, and are told that such disasters can be blamed on global warming. The real reaon why people lose their houses in floods is because the house was unwittingly built in a flood plain, and the authorities who approved the plans, no doubt in the interests of economic development, were perhaps not even aware of the history of flooding in the area.
I'm led to believe that a far greater number of species exist below the the soil surface than above it. I've heard reports that a mere handful of good soil contains more DNA than the entire human body.