Hothouse earth

Two big-time bloggers had global warming stories today. Since I will soon need to update a chapter for a textbook case study, I thought I'd note the remarkable stories they linked. Both come from Britain.

First, Billmon pointed to a Washington Post feature story about scientist James Lovelock. I've taken this synopsis of Lovelock's noteworthy argument about global warming from the Post's review of his latest book:

The warming that Lovelock fears will occur is far more dire than that projected by many other scientists; he believes it will be comparable to the prodigious heating that occurred 55 million years ago, except that today the sun is 0.5 percent hotter than it was then. As a result, he warns, the oceans will rise 80 vertical meters, almost all life in the oceans and tropics will be exterminated, and civilization will be reduced to places such as Baffin Island and the Antarctic Peninsula, whose climate will resemble that of Florida.

Gulp.

Kevin Drum points to an article in The Independent claiming that the Bush administration "is preparing an astonishing U-turn on global warming." They will aim to control emissions by pushing renewable energy sources. Similar rumors have been floating around for awhile.

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