Global warming. So much progress, huh? (a message for the younger scientists)
Last weekend, while tiding an old trunk full of notes and papers and other stuff that sits in our lounge under a zillion plant pots, I came across this Newsweek cover I show above. The leading title: “No more hot air. Its’ time to talk sense about the Environment” caught my eye immediately. The issue is dated June 1992, that is 28 years ago and referred to a United Nations Earth Summit (actually the first one) that was held in Rio de Janeiro that year. Among a list of issues that were on the table then, I noted and agenda (named Agenda 21) through which industrial nations would help poor countries develop their economies without damaging their environments. The IPCC was created in 1988 (and was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2007) and the Kyoto protocol was signed by many countries in 1997. Yet, I often wonder how much has been achieved since then or if we have done enough. We see glaciers melting, droughts and floods more often than expected or in new areas, and several biological groups t