Art Bell opens with extensive coverage of the Terri Schiavo case, expressing his view that without a signed document, the courts should err on the side of life. He also reports on a 7.0 earthquake off Japan, tornadoes in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, rising gasoline prices, and the discovery of soft tissue preserved inside a 70-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex fossil. Open lines callers share passionate opinions on end-of-life decisions and the precedent being set.
Professor Peter Ward of the University of Washington joins to discuss mass extinctions and climate change. He explains that the greatest extinction event in Earth's history, 250 million years ago, killed roughly 90% of all species and was caused not by an asteroid but by massive volcanic activity in Siberia that flooded the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. Ward describes the alarming parallels to current conditions, noting that Mount Kilimanjaro is losing its snow 15 years ahead of predictions.
Ward addresses the methane threat lurking in ocean sediments and Arctic permafrost, confirming the scientific concern that warming could trigger catastrophic releases. He discusses computer climate models projecting 1,000 parts per million of atmospheric CO2 within 100 to 200 years, a level that would transform Washington State into a tropical environment with palm trees and malaria. Ward suggests that intelligent species inevitably damage their planets through technological advancement, potentially explaining why the search for extraterrestrial intelligence has found silence.
