Web edition: March 10, 2004 Print edition: March 13, 2004;
Vol.165 #11 (p. 175) "Tapping sun's light and heat to make
hydrogen" (SN: 1/17/04, p. 46:
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040117/note14.asp) seems
to be delivering good news for the environment: "Clean" hydrogen
can be produced from water using solar energy. This seems to me,
however, to be even more horrifying than the burning of fossil
fuels, which I believe we will be able to survive quite well
without, once we consume them all. Will we shift our voracious
consumption to the extremely finite water supply? Will we pump
the very basis of life out of the ground to burn, nonrenewably,
in our cars? This sounds like the worst plan yet. The political
pseudoscience press strikes again ("Warming climate may slam
many species," SN: 1/24/04, p. 62:
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040124/note15.asp). Now,
we are told that by 2050, as many as 31 percent of species will
be wiped out by a temperature increase of 0.8 to 1.7°C. I find
this impossible to