In your article on the harnessing of marine power from tides and waves to generate electricity (“Tapping the Power of the Sea,” April 28, 2007), which shows quite clearly that this vast planetary resource is being tentatively explored in a few places only, you question the assessment of Hunter Lovins, an energy economics pundit, that a global recognition of the “extreme seriousness” of climate change is still absent. In his mind, the marine power will remain sidelined in the meanwhile. “But is there such an absence?” you ask somewhat naively. If your own article is not enough to demonstrate it, the absence, it is enough to peruse through the rest of the issue. What is happening around the world to show the recognition of the extreme seriousness of this unprecedented global threat? As the entire issue shows, the recognition is spotty at best. In most places it is lukewarm, too. As a species, we are still far from organizing ourselves around this particular threat, let alone tackling it in earnest by joining all our forces. No less than that is required at this stage, when the threat is becoming quite plain in many parts of the world, but it is nevertheless sadly absent, just as Hunter Lovins has claimed.