Environment: Global warming a major threat

Two scientific reports last week were added to the mountain of evidence that global warming is real and can no longer be ignored by the Bush administration.

In the first, released Wednesday, marine life was found to be threatened by changes caused by burning fossil fuels, the lead cause of global warming. This added carbon dioxide is dissolving in the oceans, making them more acid, said the panel of the National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Geological Survey.

"Ocean chemistry, pH, is changing and will continue to change as long as CO2 emissions are increasing. That is not debatable," said Joan Kleypas of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

The second report, published Thursday in the journal Science, found the increase in the number of large Western wildfires in recent years "another part of a chain of reactions to climate warming."