1. The politics of global warming The political issues. The potential impacts of the politics on global warming research.

2. The politics of global warming The issues The predictions of the consequences of global warming suggest actions affecting economical growth and related political goals and aspirations. Moreover, these actions require international collaborations. Therefore, global warming impinges on the relationship between the developed nations and the countries that are still developing. It impinges on the relationship between the rich and the poor.

3. The politics of global warming The issue of global warming is also an issue about the relationship between man and Nature, and therefore an issue of meaning of life and value of living. For the same reason, it is also an issue with heavy religious underpinnings!

4. The politics of global warming The issues The time-scale of global warming happens to be on the time-scale of one or two generations. It brings to the forefront of the issue of what value frame we should have in valuing our present interest against the interest of our children and grandchildren.

5. The politics of global warming The issues Scientists are trained to be objective, but they are also humans competing for a limited pool of resources for research The relationship between the scientists and the public and the relationship between the scientists and the governments

6. The potential impacts Elevate the societal visibility of the global warming research Improved communications among the scientists, the public, and the governing bodies. Increase the awareness that humans and its natural environment are parts of one organic whole. Instead of one being in control of the other, man and the earth’s climate system may have to co- evolve and attend each other’s needs for a healthy and sustainable state of being.

7. The potential impacts The rush for dramatic and costly actions The further alienation between the developed and the developing countries, the alienation between the rich and the poor

8. The Gaia Hypothesis The Earth could be considered a vast living system in its own right. Specifically, the Gaia hypothesis says that the temperature, oxidation, state, acidity, and certain aspects of the rocks and waters are kept constant, and that the homeostasis is maintained by active feedback processes operated automatically and unconsciously by the biota--J. Lovelock