Every Breath You Take

DEAD MARS, DYING EARTH
By John E. Brandenburg and Monica Rix Paxon
The Crossing Press
Hardcover, 376 pages

With this intriguing title, DEAD MARS, DYING EARTH, John E. Brandenburg and Monica Rix Paxon issue a clarion call to scientists, policy makers and citizens to rally behind a program to develop fusion energy, preserve (and replant) forests, curb ocean pollution, and end humankind's dependence on fossil fuels. Though carbon dioxide emmissions are considered "harmless" in measurements of pollution, the increase of CO₂ in Earth's atmosphere have begun a process of climatic change, that can turn our planet into a twin of the cold, tortured planet Mars.

Physicist Brandenburg and science writer, Paxon support their argument by documenting the rise in global temperatures, chaotic climate effects, unprecedented numbers of children with asthma, and the disturbing decrease in atmospheric oxygen concentration since 1958 (Oxygen Inventory Depletion). Yes, you read that right, they are saying that oxygen, the stuff we breathe to stay alive, is disappearing.

Author John E. Brandenburg is a Mars expert and former NASA advisor, who now works in the aerospace industry. He is a controversial figure for his role in pressing NASA to investigate the Cydonia area of Mars, host to the infamous "face."

By chronicling his investigations and theories related to the 1976 Viking images, and the highly emotional opposition of mainstream scientists to even consider the possibility that Mars once was home to intelligent life, Brandenburg effectively underscores current opposition to the idea that human action, the burning fossil fuels, and destroying the planet's forests, is working inexorably, to choke all oxygen-dependent lifeforms to death.

Whether or not you agree to entertain the notion that Mars might have been home to intelligent life, you will be impressed by Brandenburg's analysis of Martian geologic and atmospheric conditions in the aftermath of the Lyot meteor impact, that created the inhospitable Mars we know today.

To my mind, this book should be read and discussed by leaders of all industrialized nations, all current US presidential candidates, and every thinking, caring human being. This information is vital for plotting the future. Its warnings should be acted upon, now. However, when people are having a good time, as they are amid the present wave of prosperity in the USA, nobody wants to hear it.

On this point, the book makes an apt analogy between the state of the Earth and reactions of two vessels linked with the doomed Titannic. The California, 20 miles away from the sinking Titannic when it saw flares in the sky, refused to entertain the idea that the ship might be in trouble, and continued along its course. The Carpathia, however, roused its boiler room crew from sleep and made record speed to the site of Titannic's end, saving 750 lives. Which course will humankind take?

Today, the July 2000 issue of Scientific American sits on my deask. It features a story on the lakes in Cameroon that Brandenburg tells us 'burped' excess carbon dioxide from their depths in 1986, suffocating 1,700 humans and countless animals, -and which may do so again. The New York Times carries the article entitled, "Chinese Farmers See New Desert Erode Their Way of Life." -How long will we watch the flares against the sky before WE mount a rescue of our planet?

For current information on issues presented in the book, or to reach the authors, visit The Garden Earth Enterprise,/a>.

Dead Mars, Dying Earth
John E. Brandenburg and Monica Rix Paxon
March 2000
ISBN 1580910661
The Crossing Press
Freedom, CA

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