Houghton friends and foes weigh in on global warming

Many readers of Physics Today no doubt recognize the deadly and accelerating assault on the biosphere from modern industrial societies. Thus it is good to see the interview with John Houghton (Physics Today, September 2007, page 30 ) regarding global warming, along with a substantive discussion in the Letters section (page 14) on the pros and cons of nuclear power.

Houghton is doing valuable work spreading the word that humans need to quickly change their behavior and take better care of the biosphere. In the interview he lists several things people can do to diminish their environmental impacts. Unfortunately, like essentially all such lists appearing in the media, his list neglects what is arguably the most environmentally important life decision couples can make—to limit their number of children to two, at most. Houghton seems to recognize that there are far too many people on Earth, but he fails to suggest that everyone can help by not adding to the already enormous human population.

In the same issue, a feature article on echolocation in dolphins and bats (page 40) illustrates the wonders of just a few nonhuman species. Yet the combination of our numerical and material excesses is wiping out numerous species, some amazing and some perhaps less so, at a rate unseen on Earth for at least 65 million years. By the time we are done, humans may well be the cause of the worst mass extinction event in Earth’s history. Despite that ongoing catastrophe, for most people—including most scientists I know—life is just business as usual.