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And, as we all know, the existence of liquid water makes the possibility of life far more likely.

But what happened?

Exactly what caused the dramatic climate changes which resulted in the loss of all that valuable liquid water?

To some people, the history of a rock that sits over 160 million Kms away is irrelevant and represents simply an academic exercise in speculation. However, I don't think you have to be an astrophysicist to realise that we might be able to learn some valuable lessons from our neighbouring planets.

Right now, climate scientists are more than a little concerned that levels of CO2 are rising here on planet earth at an unexpectedly high rate. There are some experts who believe this is indeed a very significant observation and that it indicates the planet's carbon sinks are filled to capacity.

The fear is that if those sinks are now incapable of absorbing any more carbon, the rate of CO2 increase in the atmosphere will continue to rise at unprecedented rates, with the result that global warming will be accelerated.

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While there are moves afoot to reduce our production of greenhouse gases, it's possible that we're just a little too late to save the planet from rather catastrophic warming.

One problem is that we've decimated huge tracts of rainforest, a process that not only reduces the planet's ability to absorb carbon but also releases new greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Another, and perhaps the most obvious problem, is our continued reliance on fossil fuels, something that results in astonishing amounts of carbon being liberated in the form of CO and CO2.

You'd have to be deaf, blind and completely stupid not to have noticed how the small amount of warming we've already experienced has begun to mess up weather patterns around the globe -- the worry is that it's going to get an awful lot worse before it gets better.

So what can we do to avoid a potential disaster of global proportions?

Well I'm no greenie but I have to admit that perhaps it's time we started listening to the sandal-wearing, tree-hugging hippie-wannabes amongst us.

Let's face it, the list of reasons why we ought to be working as hard as we can to reduce fossil-fuel dependency seems to be growing every day and the recent record prices for oil is just another one.

As a tiny country in the middle of the South Pacific there's not a lot New Zealand can do -- but we can try to set standards for energy efficiency and reductions in CO2 emissions that the rest of the world can use as a benchmark.

For a country that has a seemingly endless supply of wind and tidal power, we burn a lot of fossil fuel to generate our electricity and power our vehicle fleet so we've got huge room for improvement.

We have more than our fair share of very clever people in this country, how about we start focusing our attentions on coming up with practical energy alternatives? I know it's not easy (or everyone would be doing it) but I think we owe it to ourselves to give it our best shot.

I've recently been reviewing a long list of submissions from many school-kids looking to participate in the Goober Brothers "Let's get inventin" programme. It seems that many of these kids are aware of the issue and have been giving quite a bit of thought to the issue of alternative energy sources -- thank God!

Let's just hope that we haven't already stuffed things up beyond repair by the time our kids are in a position to try and put things right.

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