There are ways to manage the excess of CO2.
This require money and free scientific assesing.
We got to get calmed and working a lot. The whole world is warming (it was a very hot summer here in Argentina). American politics is the clue to solve this. Please, vote right and fight the very dangerous kind of Chertoffs, Browns, etc. (you know), that hides vital information, misleads, AND WASTE PRECIOUS TIME.
Good luck.

Judging from the picture above soon we can all expect to have ice delivered to our doorstep free of charge!

Say goodbye to Santa Monica, New York, Seattle, Boston, and probably Houston and Chicago, in about 10 years......all those wealthy home owners will be very disapointed that they won’t be able to collect any equity on their homes....

If the rest of us survive the hurricans, droughts, and lack of fresh water… we’ll only have to worry about everyone else in the world who want’s what little we have…

It would have been so much easier to protect the environment, now I guess if humanity survives it will be in Omaha Nebraska....not anywhere on the coast, oh well at least it won’t be a nuclear war…

It’s been said many times I know, but it has to be said again and again. Men have truly f@*ked our beautiful planet beyond belief and it is finally time to turn stewardship of this place over to the women of the world once and for all. Will we ever be forgiven I wonder? What a disgusting mess we have left for our kids. I am a grandparent and I don’t know what to say to my wee grandkids when they are not so wee anymore. I know I will at least ensure they are not brainwashed with gov’t or religious propraganda if I can. I plead with anyone reading these threads to remember we have to leave a better earth for our followers and if you can look deep enough, think about how religion has screwed our world up, have a quick read of http://www.truthdig.org and think about your path.

David,

“Past” in the headline is correct.  “Passed” is incorrect.

Watch the Bushies use this report to say, if we’we passed (and in tnis usage, “passed” is correct)the tipping point, then it’s too late to do anything, so why bother even trying?

Donald

Interesting conclusions;before we allow ourselves to be washed over with Nuc weenie Public Relations engineering(as well as boiweenie-see:biodesil)-let us pull out Buckminister Fuller from the 1970’s.

1-our overall thermal efficency of industrial societies is still less than- 5%! This is despite the improvements that could and should have occured since then.
Obviously 100% isn’t doable-but 20% is and economically compelling.
2-load reduction is synergeticly advantaged by load elimination.For instance-despite what you may beleive there is NO requirement for air conditing in buildings anywhere on this planet-mech dehumidifing,yes,airconditioning no.If you are living in a building that does need it-you are a jerk and you have being ripped off.
The same can be said for at least 2/3 of your heating load any where on the planet-excepting if you live on a glacier-in which case I would reccomend a relocation for other more compelling reasons.
3-If you are confusing cars with transport,on effiecency alone(less than 3% at best),you are even more of a jerk than case 2 above and for even more reasons-If your car was designed by a competent air craft designer engineer,it would be hauling 4 passengers at highway speed at 200mpg-not 20-50.This is the difference betwixt real design and auto pr design-which one did you buy into?
4-The real reason we are reduced to our present straits-besides too many of us being willfully stupid enough to be christians(or any other stain of primitive dualists monomania),is because our energy storage technology needed to match the wind and sun power to needful loads is not actually available despite being developed. Because our ‘Oil and Atom mafias’ have being buying up the battery patents for 30 years-and making sure they are Not available-Don’t believe me,see:Superflywheel and Connoco-datline late 70s early 80s.There are other more recent examples of this.

I live well on less than 5% of the average energy requrment per capita,and at less than 20% of the water required,and I can take this much farther-my main problem is storage followed by sabotage(closely trailed by funds-but I can boot strap my finances and have no choice given the craven stupid greed of our banks).The know how is out there,despite the advertizer driven speals to the contrary and I can assure you-from personel experince that the worst that is likely to befall you on such a path is that you will end up less of a jerk than you are now.

The best refs to further this argument would be;
Bucky works by J Baldwin,
Earth energy and everyone by world game institute
The web site of RMI.org-Amory Lovins web site
Passive annual heat storage by John Hait.

There is more ,much more can someone get prof Lovelock to listen?

Todd Millons

t

Are you kidding me, worry about climate change when we have a midterm election coming up that is much more important. Give me a break, Lets line the political pockets a little more before we have to get serious about the major threat to America and the World. Saint’s preserve us, Cheney hasn’t been told my Halliburton yet that we need to back off. “Play grasshopper, little do you know that winter is coming...”

what about taking about it on the news, comercials, front page on the news paper, and ect.

The gonvernments around the world won’t be spending to avoid serious problems unless those in power have positioned themselves in line to receive most of the money when it is spent.  Who makes the most on the Iraq war?  Enough said.

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing the Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to when we will past the tipping point and be helpless to stop the runaway global warming.

There are enormous quantities of methane trapped in permafrost and under the oceans in ice-like structures called clathrates. The methane in Arctic permafrost clathrates is estimated at 400 billion tons.

Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2, and the atmosphere currently contains about 3.5 billion tons of the gas.

The highest temperature increase from global warming is occurring in the arctic regions-an area rich in these unstable clathrates. Simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that over half the permafrost will thaw by 2050, and as much as 90 percent by 2100.

Peat deposits may be a comparable methane source to melting permafrost.  When peat that has been frozen for thousands of years thaws, it still contains viable populations of bacteria that begin to convert the peat into methane and CO2.

Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years.  The west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70 billion tonnes of methane.  Local atmospheric levels of methane on the Siberian shelf are now 25 times higher than global concentrations.

By the way, warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons have caused microbial activity to increase dramatically in the soil around the world. This, in turn, means that much of the carbon long stored in the soil is now being released into the atmosphere.

Releases of methane from melting oceanic clathrates have caused severe environmental impacts in the past. The methane in oceanic clathrates has been estimated at 10,000 billion tons.

55 million years ago a global warming chain reaction (probably started by volcanic activity) melted oceanic clathrates. It was one of the most rapid and extreme global warming events in geologic history.

Humans appear to be capable of emitting CO2 in quantities comparable to the volcanic activity that started these chain reactions.  According to the U.S. Geological Survey, burning fossil fuels releases more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes.

To summarize, human activity is causing the Earth to warm.  Bacteria converts carbon in the soil into greenhouse gasses, and enormous quantities are trapped in unstable clathrates.  As the earth continues to warm, permafrost clathrates will thaw; peat and soil microbial activity will dramatically increase; and, finally, vast oceanic clathrates will melt.  This global warming chain reaction has happened in the past.

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 rose by a record amount over the past year. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply. Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken place, but fear the trend could be the first sign of runaway global warming.

passed not past

people should take global warming seriously, im a 26 yr old mother off two,, who totally understands the meaning off global warming ,, and i think it is our fault that this is happening, Everybody pollutes the world and everyone thinks its ok to do so , But realistically its not ok , our WORLD IS SUFFERING BECAUSE OFF OUR NEGLECT AND ABUSE to the world, I SAY EVERYONE SHOULD GROW UP AND CHANGE THE WAY WE ALL LIVE THEN WE MIGHT SEE SOME CHANGES, NOT FOR THE BAD, BUT FOR THE GOOD thankyou erica