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When economists talk about the crash, they usually blame subprime mortgages and profligate lending by the banks. However, our financial problems are only a side-effect of the real issue, which is that, last summer, we experienced our first taste of what it is like to butt up against the limits of the earth’s ability to sustain our growth.

Things have changed so much that it is almost impossible to look back to those days and remember what it was like, and yet it’s only a few months ago.

Starting in early 2007 and peaking last summer, commodities prices shot up massively across the board, culminating last August when oil reach $149.00 a barrel, and gasoline prices around the world shot up by as much as two hundred percent in some countries.
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?just not TOO MUCH – Scientists think that a little sadness can be useful, but clinical depression is NOT. This is yet another reason why teenagers shouldn’t smoke: They could be setting themselves up for depression later in life.

Unlike some other psychologists, Ian Hickie does not think depression is over diagnosed, although many of them don’t know exactly where to draw the line between people who are sad for a reason and those who have a problem that needs serious medication. And he thinks that borderline depression may be the most dangerous condition of all.

In New Scientist, Jessica Marshall quotes Hickie as saying “Most of the suicides do not occur in the most severely depressed.”
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Some of the same species are living on BOTH ENDS of the earth?how in the world did this happen?

In BBC News, Mark Kinver quotes researcher Ron O’Dor as saying, “Some of the more obvious species like birds and whales migrate between the poles on an annual basis.” It’s the small, non-migrating species, like sea cucumbers and snails, that are found in both the Arctic and Antarctic that baffle scientists. Did they hitch a ride on a whale?

Kinver quotes O’Dor as saying, “The oceans are a mixing ground. There are all kinds of currents that allow things to move around.” Scientists call these “conveyor belt” currents.

Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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What will it mean? Ask your local lake! – Four degrees Celsius is the equivalent of 7.2degrees Fahrenheit, and this is the amount that the earth is projected to warm up in the future. It seems like a small change, but it could have major repercussions.

In New Scientist, Gaia Vince writes: “Alligators basking offthe English coast; a vast Brazilian desert; the mythical lostcities of Saigon, New Orleans, Venice and Mumbai; and 90% of humanity vanished. Welcome to the world warmed by 4

NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed.read more