It has been said that ghosts often haunt us when they have been the victim of a violent or untimely death and for which they are seeking answers or vindication.  In Al Gore’s film and book “An Inconvenient Truth” the violent and untimely destruction of our planet by global warming is resulting in the slow but accelerating death of life on earth.  As expressed in “horror vacui (idea)”, “...sometimes, absence can take on so much presence.”  I have chosen to create music and sounds representative of the ghosts of our dying planet:

1. Glaciers (melting and freefalling)

2. Land and Sea (drought drying the land and evaporating lakes and seas)

3. Landscape (storms—hurricanes, typhoons, monsoons and tornados-- increasing in severity and frequency worldwide, causing widespread destruction, flooding, displacement and death)

4. Wildlife (as the balance of nature is shifted, wildlife is endangered and species extinction rates are skyrocketing—i.e., polar bears are drowning and penguins’ breeding grounds and sources for food are diminishing)

5. Rain Forests (cut or burned by humans, adding to global warming and destroying habitat)

6. Coral Reefs (dying off, giving way to algae and “dead zones” devoid of ocean life)

There are also the ghosts of progress which have been ignored:

7. Roger Revelle, the first scientist to propose measuring CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.  He did so from 1958 until his death in 1991.  The levels have gone consistently upward and at a more rapid rate today.  His findings have been put forward in Congress several times, only to be ignored.

8. The electric car.  Patents have been destroyed or buried by auto  companies. Recently, a prototype was developed and produced.  After being tested successfully by families in California, they were destroyed because they required no repairs and were extremely efficient, threatening the auto industry.

Jane Reynolds