This site is being constructed.  More updates coming...

This website represents my personal views, backed up by key references (see bottom). It does not represent any organization.

 

First, the Bottom Line:

1. We have released so much carbon dioxide (CO2) from burning fossil fuels, deforestation and bad agricultural practices that atmospheric CO2 is now at 385 parts per million (ppm), 67% above the average of the past 800.000 years (covering many glacial/interglacial cycles), and 29% above the maximum of the same period. The rate of increase is 2.2ppm/year and getting faster. From radioisotope fingerprinting of atmospheric CO2 we know that the current excess of CO2 in the air is from fossil fuel burning, not from natural causes, so humans are certainly responsible.
2. Due to planetary inertia, the full extent of warming from the CO2 already in the air will not fully materialize until many years later. We’ve set in motion 2 powerful positive feedback mechanisms: ice-albedo (melting of ice-sheets reduces sunlight deflection by ice, ocean absorbs more heat than ice, hastening warming), and the release of greenhouse gases by warmer ocean, soil and biosphere.
3. In Sep 2008, one of the most feared manifestations of the second feedback effect is confirmed in the Arctic: massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface via "methane chimneys" as ice and permafrost (which serves as a “lid” to the methane hydrate) melts. Methane is a green house gas at least 20 times stronger than CO2, and its deposits under the permafrost and the ocean floor are bigger than all the oil that was ever burnt and that could ever be extracted! The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) did NOT take the warming effect of methane hydrate release into their calculations when they set 450ppm CO2 as the “do-no-exceed” line, for averting the worst catastrophes.
4. In geological times, Earth was completely ice-free when CO2 exceeded 450ppm. Sea level was 75 meters higher than today. That concentration is fast approaching, even though the full extent of sea level rise will take a long time to happen.
5. NASA’s top climatologists tell us that the safe upper limit of atmospheric CO2 that we should aim to stay below is probably between 300-350 ppm.  We have already overshot it.  The longer we stay above that, the less likely we could still turn back the long term climate change that we have set in motion, which will eventually proceed way beyond human control.
6. Sudden warmings of a few degrees in the past have triggered mass extinctions. Current species extinction rate is estimated at 100 to 1000 times "background" or average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth. A mass extinction is underway and we have to reverse course quickly enough to prevent the worst.
7. The solutions to climate crisis by switching to renewable energies and a green economy also represent an unprecedented economic and job-creating opportunity, and all the necessary technologies are already here, but development of some of them for large scale deployment is urgently needed.

 

Please ACT NOW.  Spread the Word.  Call your elected officials.  Talk to your employers.  Wake up as many people as you can (for example, call 10 friends and ask them to each call 10 friends of their own. This will exponentially spread the message).  There is much everyone can do.  Massachusetts residents, please sign the Secure Green Future statewide petition AND vote YES on the SGF ballot question seeking truly swift cuts in CO2 emissions, and a transition to a sustainable, job-creating green economy that is the cross-cutting remedy for the collapsing oil-addicted economy and the climate crisis.  More on this below.

 
Now, the Details, with References:

(I wasn’t able to put a thumbnail of this graph here, but you can click on the link to view:)

Graph: Trend in Atmospheric CO2 Over the Industrial Era Till Present. See slide #24

 

Q: Is global warming even caused by humans?

A: For at least 800,000 years (which covers many glacial/interglacial cycles) - likely much longer - atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has averaged 230 parts per million and never exceeded 299ppm. Since the beginning of the industrial era it climbed from 275ppm to 385ppm today^[1], increasing now at 2.2ppm/year and getting faster^[20], due to burning fossil fuels (which emit carbon) and degradation of forests and soils (thus absorbing less carbon). It’s the highest CO2 in probably 20 million years. Even without further acceleration, it’ll reach 477ppm by mid-century. Humans and polar bears have existed for just 250,000 years.  Both are only known to have survived with CO2 below 300ppm. Polar bears are now going extinct with their habitat melting away. Our fate is just as worrisome, as you’ll see below. From radioisotope fingerprinting of atmospheric CO2 we know that the current excess of CO2 in the air is from fossil fuel burning, not from natural causes, so humans are certainly responsible^[2].

Q: You may have heard the argument that global warming is due to earth’s natural orbital cycles, and that past warmings preceded CO2 increases, hence CO2 didn’t cause warming.

A: That’s twisting the facts. There is absolutely no dispute among scientists about the basic fact that green house gases are what allow the earth to retain solar energy and not freeze up. According to the orbital cycles, we are in the cooling phase: 0.5^oC averaged over the past 8,000 years. But in the last 200 years we not only reversed direction, but we are warming 25x faster than any past warming cycles^[3]. What is true is that major glacial-interglacial climate swings were initially instigated by slow changes of Earth’s orbit, especially the tilt of Earth’s spin axis relative to the orbital plane and the precession of the equinoxes that influences the intensity of summer insolation.  Such orbital changes itself only resulted in very small temperature changes (or more precisely, global radiative forcing), but it then got hugely amplified by 2 strong positive feedback mechanisms^[1]: ice-albedo (melting of ice-sheets reduces sunlight deflection by ice, ocean absorbs more heat than ice, hastening warming), and the release of greenhouse gases by warmer ocean, soil and biosphere. That’s why the initiation of past glacial-interglacial cycles preceded large CO2 and temperature changes.

But now HUMANS initiated a sudden rise in CO2 and consequently in temperature, which then gets amplified by the same 2 positive feedback mechanisms, therefore we’re already committed to more CO2 and more warming in the pipeline for decades or even a century, even if fossil fuel burning is stopped immediately. In other words, the full effect of today’s CO2 levels from fossil fuel burning will not be fully realized yet until many years later.

In Sep 2008, one of the most feared manifestations of the second feedback effect is confirmed in the Arctic: massive deposits of sub-sea methane are bubbling to the surface via "methane chimneys" as ice and permafrost (which serves as a “lid” to the methane hydrate) melts^[4]. Methane is a green house gas 62 times more potent than CO2 compared over 20 years, and 25 times more potent than CO2 compared over 100 years. Methane hydrate deposits under the permafrost and the ocean floor are bigger than all the oil that was ever and could ever be extracted! That’s why if large scale methane release is really set off it’s like a time-bomb went off.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their 2007 report did NOT take the warming effect of methane hydrate release into their calculations when they set 450ppm CO2 as the “do-no-exceed” line, for averting the worst catastrophes, because all the studies they reviewed assumed much slower ice melting.  Just how high is the methane concentration in the air now? Well, a year before the methane release was discovered, it was at 1800 parts per billion (ppb) in the one year period ending Sep 2007^[23].  It never exceeded 700ppb in at least 800,000 years before now^{[1, sppt mtrl, FigS18a]}!

Another large carbon sink at grave risk of irreversible positive feedback release of carbon into the atmosphere due to human triggered global warming is the northern peatlands, also known as bogs, moors, mires, and swamp forests. Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter. The northern peatlands are believed to store roughly half of the carbon the atmosphere contains, and they tend to emit much of their carbon in the form of methane – so it’s a double whammy! In the Oct12 2008 issue of the highly respected journal Nature Geoscience, Ise et al.^[21] “conclude(d) that peatlands will quickly respond to the expected warming in this century by losing labile soil organic carbon during dry periods.”

When these positive feedback carbon release mechanisms are in full force as they are getting ready to be, no amount of human CO2 emission cuts will matter anymore in the slightest. From paleoclimate records as well as simulations, it is evident that the global climate system can respond very quickly once past “the point of no-return”, with massive warming much much faster than the initial stages of change. That point is what we must avoid reaching to save civilization as we know it.

To date, about one-third of all human-generated carbon emissions have dissolved into the ocean^[5], forming carbonic acid. In other words the ocean has been slowing down observed global warming. But as the ocean becomes more concentrated with CO2 the rate of dissolving slows down while the rate of releasing, especially as the ocean temperature rises, increases, a well understood fact about chemical equilibrium.  A 10-year study by researchers from the University of East Anglia found that the uptake of CO2 by the North Atlantic ocean reduced >50% from the mid-1990s to the period 2002-2005^[6]. The authors attributed at least part of this decline in ocean carbon sink capacity to its increased carbon content. Dissolved CO2 also increases ocean acidity, which could disrupt marine ecosystems irreversibly by negatively affecting marine shell-forming organisms, which is also the major carbon sink in the carbon cycle of the planet^[7]. It is possible that even with emissions this century resulting in 2°C change or less, parts of the Southern Ocean could effectively become toxic to some organisms by 2050^[8].

 

Q: So what’s so bad about a warmer climate? Afterall, average temperature has risen only one degree or so.

A: The difference between temperature extremes in glacial/interglacial cycles^{[1, sppt mtrl, FigS18c]} was a mere 4-6^oC, yet during the height of an ice age much of the Earth’s surface was covered by ice sheets up to several miles deep.  That included much of Canada and the northern U.S., with ice creeping as far south as modern day Nebraska, Chicago and New York. So far we have already caused 0.7^oC warming (as of at least a year ago), and current greenhouse gas levels in the air, if long maintained, will bring another 2^oC warming^{[1, page6]}, and that’s without considering any significant release of methane hydrate from frozen permafrost and under sea bed, as we discussed above.  Furthermore, polar regions warm roughly twice as much as global temperature change, making ice melting and release of frozen methane much more serious.

In geological times, the earth was completely ice-free when CO2 exceeded 450ppm^[1].  Sea level was 75 meters higher than today. That concentration is fast approaching (remember the CO2 that’s still in the pipeline as discussed above), even though the full extent of sea level rise will likely take a long time to carry out due to the inertia of ocean and ice sheets. Even a fraction of such a sea level rise will not only obliterate many densely populated coastal regions, island nations and global coastal wetlands that are natural sponges that provide vital protection against floods and storm surges, further stressing a world with ever growing population and depleting resources, it will also dissolve enormous amounts of toxic chemicals currently in our factories, farms, military facilities, building material, household items… into the ocean.

But why did you hear that sea level was only going to rise by less than a meter by the end of the century? That’s because those estimates assumed no ice sheet loss, only the ocean volume expansion from a few degrees of warming.  But NASA satellite images from recent years are making it apparent that polar ice covers are disappearing at a shocking rate exceeding all worst scenario modeling^[9-12,25], and it can only accelerate until it is unstoppable, unless we take strongest actions immediately.  According to a World Bank study^[13], continued growth of emissions could well promote a sea-level rise of 1-3 meters this century.  Unexpectedly rapid break-up of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets might produce a 5 meter rise.  “Within this century, hundreds of millions of people are likely to be displaced by sea level rise…The world has not previously faced a crisis on this scale, and planning for adaptation should begin immediately.”

And Pentagon understands this – where it matters to them, anyway.  I stole this from tomdispatch.com: “The Navy, for instance, was already holding a symposium entitled "Naval operations in an Ice-Free Arctic" in April 2001; now, it seems that by 2010, or 2015 at the latest, it may have its wish -- an iceless Arctic Ocean in the summer for the first time in perhaps one million years and a scramble for energy and mineral wealth at the poles. An office of the Pentagon, war-gaming climate change back in 2004, wrote up a hair-raising, spine-tingling end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it report on a future planet in eternal conflict amid every kind of weather disaster; and only this week, the U.S. Intelligence Community, the official 16 agencies gathering the stuff for the government, chimed in with a grim new report, "The National Security Implications of Global Climate Change Through 2030."”  And apparently, they’ve been worrying for a while about the prospect of losing all those low-lying U.S. military bases from sea level rise due to melting ice, and the resulting need for longer range lift and strike capabilities which would increase the military's energy needs – talk about vicious cycles.

Dr. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute, has testified before Senate and House of Representatives on global warming, warning that the safe level of atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350ppm and may be less, and that surpassing this tipping point for a prolonged period of time may result in the natural feedback mechanisms mentioned above to proceed too far along and completely out of humanity’s control. “(Returning to) a level of no more than 350 ppm (from the current 385ppm) is still feasible, with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural practices, but just barely – time is running out.”^[14]

To top it off, renowned paleontologist Peter Ward shows in his book “Under A Green Sky”^[15], that every major mass extinction in the past except the dinosaur extinction (the one that was due to asteroid impact) seemed to have been caused by a sudden spike in CO2 due to volcanic activities and releases of enormous amounts of flood basalts and magma that released mega amounts of CO2 into the air.  Unlike sudden global warmings of the past, this time, WE are bringing it onto ourselves by fossil fuel burning, deforestation and destructive agricultural practices.  A 2007 research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society also warned of impending mass extinction^[16].  The present rate of species extinctions is estimated at 100 to 1000 times "background" or average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth^[17].  Of course past mass extinctions cleared the stage for new species to come into being over paleoclimate time scales, but a mass extinction now would leave our descendants with a much more desolate planet for as many generations as we can imagine.

Why is a small temperature increase to have such dramatic effects on life on earth?  Because fast temperature rise means there is no time for adaptation, as organisms evolutionarily did. At the same time, human activity – land use change and ecosystem destruction – means species’ ability to migrate is minimal. In the oceans, even around the 0.5–1.5°C mark there could be around 80% bleaching of coral reefs.^[18] Also, with increased temperature, phytoplankton, responsible for fixing half of the CO2 fixed by all plant life, will diminish, as it relies on cold ocean to survive.  Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton are responsible for much of the oxygen present in the Earth's atmosphere – half of the total amount produced by all plant life.^[19] They are also the foundation of the vast majority of oceanic and also many freshwater food webs.

 

Q: What do we need to do?  Can we afford it?

A: We need to halt CO2 emissions almost completely ASAP, and it may even be necessary to sequester CO2 from the air to drive it down below 350ppm before many years pass. It is not a matter of can we afford to cut CO2 emissions. The survival of our planet depends on it and economic growth should not dictate whether we do it or not. In fact solving the climate crisis, economic woes, and addressing national security concerns all go hand-in-hand. Renewable energies and a green, sustainable economy is the answer that will create millions of jobs, revive our economy, cure our fossil fuel addition, while ensuring a livable planet for ourselves and our descendents, all at a fraction of the US military costs^[22], and pays back for itself.

Furthermore, all the necessary technologies are already here, but development of some of them for large scale deployment is urgently needed. If we wait, soon the resources required will soar beyond our means, and our wealth will be sucked into never-ending and increasingly monstrous disaster relief, as well as inevitable future wars and conflicts stemming from global climate catastrophe and the consequent global food, water and other resource shortages, as well as land/habitat losses and ecosystem collapses.

The USA is the highest cumulative emitter^[22].  Even just comparing within the period of 1990-2005, US emitted 33% more CO2 than the 27 nations of the European Union combined, while having only 61% as much population.  China has 4.3 times the US population to support, yet its emission was only 58% that of the US, with historical emissions prior to 1990 even less significant.  Both from historical responsibility and from resource capacity, the US must lead the world in taking dramatic efforts to combat global warming.

Yet according to a World Resources Institute report, even the most aggressive proposals currently in the US Senate implementing 80% emission reduction by 2050 fails to stabilize CO2 below the 450ppm limit set by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007, based on data even earlier, for averting the worst consequences of global warming, and now new studies are lowering that limit further to no more than 350ppm (see above).  We have to stop hoping to solve this crisis without a major shake up of our economy-centric frame of mind, and really get into wartime mobilization mode, as one humanity, one planet.

Remember that CO2 lingers in the air for hundreds of years, so every year we haven’t reduced enough emission, we are adding to that cumulative total and risking the planet passing the point-of-no-return.  We have to make drastic emission reductions in the very near term.  As Al Gore put it, “A political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it's meaningless.”  Gore’s own plan, 100% carbon free electricity by 2020, is much more on the dot.  Meanwhile, Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute and recipient of numerous awards and honors, laid forth in his book "Plan B", a vision that would launch a national mobilization of resources comparable to the wartime mobilization of World War II.  By investing in wind, solar, and geothermal power, Plan B would create millions of green jobs and cut our greenhouse gas emissions 80% (relative to 1990 level) by the year 2020.  Inspired by Brown’s Plan B, the Committee for A Secure Green Future, a Massachusetts initiative, has placed a ballot question in 11 House districts that asks the Legislature to adopt a similar target, and is pushing for a statewide petition for this target as well, with a focus on local green jobs creation and sustainable, relocalized economy (see below).

A word on coal.  Coal is the largest CO2 emitter per unit of energy produced, and currently it generates the majority of electricity in the USA. According to NASA’s head climate scientist James Hansen and colleagues, coal use should be discontinued except where CO2 from coal is captured and permanently and safely stored. “If the world continues on a business-as-usual path for even another decade without initiating phase-out of unconstrained coal use, prospects for avoiding a dangerously large, extended overshoot of the 350 ppm level will be dim” ^[1]. That means no new coal fired power plants should be allowed to go into production without carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology being deployed on a commercial scale (optimistically, around 20 years away, assuming if safe storage methods can be worked out such that safety can be guaranteed).  CCS is not to be confused with coal gasification, which only reduces soot and chemical pollutant emission, but does not by itself reduce CO2 emission (actually increases it since it reduces energy generating efficiency per unit weight of coal).

(As a supporting story^[24] of how a genuine wartime mobilization can surpass the wildest of ordinary time goals, consider this:  In 1940, the United States produced a grand total of 4,000 aircrafts.  Pearl Harbor was bombed in December of 1941.  At the beginning of 1942, President Roosevelt (FDR) set what most thought was an entirely unrealistic set of goals, including the construction of 60,000 aircrafts.  Most thought he set these goals to inspire the country to aim high, even though it could never be achieved.  Between FDR's speech in the beginning of 1942 and the end of 1944, the country constructed a full 216,600 aircrafts.  No one thought it was possible, but no one really knew.  We had never then switched our economic might into constructing military weapons any more than we have now switched our economic might into constructing renewable energy infrastructure.)

 

Q: What can each of us do NOW?

• Of crucial importance is a leader who truly understands the graveness of the environmental calamity we are heading towards, and has made strong commitments. Here is a comparison page with further links to in-depth fact sheets on presidential candidates’ positions on climate and energy issues.  We need to make environmental issues, especially the climate issue, the top priority in this election, and then after the election, no matter who wins, we must hold them accountable to their sworn obligations to the future and wellbeing of this nation.
• Aggressive yet achievable state-led initiatives are effective inducers of national policy shifts. In Massachusetts on Nov4 this election day, voters in 11 state representative districts will be able to VOTE YES on the following non-binding Secure Green Future Ballot Question:

Shall the representative from this district be instructed to vote in favor of legislation that:

1.      reduces greenhouse gas emissions in Massachusetts by 80% (below 1990 level) by 2020, and

2.      phases out tax incentives for energy-intensive projects, while expanding job creation programs for locally-owned businesses and cooperatives involved in renewable energy, conservation, and sustainable agriculture?

• Join other Massachusetts residents in signing a STATEWIDE PETITION aimed at the same target as above by visiting http://www.securegreenfuture.org.  We need volunteers and donations (to cover printing fees) to help raise public awareness of this initiative and to educate the public on the urgency for decisive action. (617) 821-1453
• Call your elected officials and demand stronger action to stop global warming. Find out how your congress persons voted by subscribing to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/
• Talk to your friends, neighbors, employers. Call 10 friends and ask them to call 10 of their own to spread the message about the above petition and ballot question. Write letters-to-the-editors. Sign on to action alerts at environmental websites such as Greenpeace, nrdc.org, lcv.org, ucsaction.org and environmentaldefense.org. Buy local. Don’t buy bottled water. Recycle and compost. Conserve energy and resources everyday. All products come at a cost to the environment, energy-wise and pollution-wise. Less Is More!

 

More Resources:

• How Green Is Your Candidate? – compare Presidential candidates with in-depth fact sheets on their environmental records, and views.
• Great animation explaining climate tipping point, with extensive scientific references.
• How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic – facts that debunk climate contrarian talking points.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)– the world’s most authoritative source of information on climate change, that delivered a comprehensive climate related literature review by thousands of top scientists from around the world, commissioned by and summarized for policymakers, and signed off by every government in the world.  IPCC and Al Gore shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Price for telling the world that we need to take urgent action or face peril.
• Scripps CO2 Program - Home of the Keeling Curve and measurements of atmospheric CO2.
• Climate Progress – excellent analysis on all topics regarding climate change, from Joe Romm, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
• 350.org - An organization dedicated to raising global awareness about this most important number to humanity, in parts per million, that is. Please sign their petition.
• Secure Green Future – A grass-root project in Massachusetts, USA, putting the global warming issue on the ballot to show elected officials how much their constituents care. Calls for 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. MA residents please sign the online statewide petition.
• Plan B - Earth Policy Institute – A plan to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2020, laid out by Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute and recipient of numerous awards and honors.
• ExxonSecrets is a Greenpeace research project. The database compiles Exxon Foundation and corporate funding to a series of institutions who have worked to undermine solutions to global warming and climate change. It details the working relationships of individuals associated with these organizations and their global warming quotes and deeds.  Click on topics under the project, on the left of the page.
• Union of Concerned Scientists has done similar investigations.
• The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World – the Greenhouse Development Rights framework.  Second edition coming soon.  This is a framework that “is designed to support an emergency climate stabilization program while, at the same time, preserving the right of all people to reach a dignified level of sustainable human development free of the privations of poverty.”  It quantifies the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change's official principles about “the widest possible cooperation… in accordance with common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities" by providing a coherent, principle-based way to think about national obligations to pay for both mitigation and adaptation.
• The debt of nations and the distribution of ecological impacts from human activities - published in the Proceedings of the American National Academy of Sciences, 2007, this is the first convincing attempt at quantifying the subject.
• The Happy Planet Index – An index of the environmental efficiency of supporting well-being in a given country. It is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ development, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Human Development Index (HDI), which are seen as not taking sustainability into account.

 

References:

1. Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, P. Kharecha, D. Beerling, R. Berner, V. Masson-Delmotte, M. Pagani, M. Raymo, D.L. Royer, and J.C. Zachos, 2008: Target atmospheric CO₂: Where should humanity aim? Open Atmos. Sci. J., in press.  And, Supporting Material for the same paper
2. How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?  http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=87
3. Compare the current rate of temp rise, from Fig 6.10b “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis of Climate Change.  Chapter 6 Palaeoclimate In Climate change 2007: the physical science basis.” http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/ipcc2007.html, to glacial-interglacial cycle record of Fig. (S18) of Ref 1 above.
4. Exclusive: The methane time bomb  The Independent, Tuesday, 23 September 2008
5. Doney, Scott C.; Naomi M. Levine (2006-11-29). "How Long Can the Ocean Slow Global Warming?" Oceanus. By Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
6. Schuster, U., and A. J. Watson (2007), A variable and decreasing sink for atmospheric CO2 in the North Atlantic, J. Geophys. Res., doi:10.1029/2006JC003941, in press. (accepted 24 July 2007) (need to link to the published article)
7. The Royal Society (2005) Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, Policy Document 12/05, June 2005
8. Orr J et al (2005) ‘Anthropogenic ocean acidification over the twenty-first century and its impact on calcifying organisms’, Nature 437, 681–6
9. Arctic losing long-term ice cover  BBC News, Tuesday, 18 March 2008
10. Greenland's Rising Air Temperatures Drive Ice Loss at Surface and Beyond.  From NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 02.21.08
11. Antarctic Ice Loss Speeds up, Nearly Matches Greenland Loss.  From NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Mission News, 01.23.08
12. Melting North Pole in its ‘death spiral’ as ice cap becomes an island.  The Herald, September 01 2008
13. Dasgupta S et al (2007) The Impact of Sea Level Rise on Developing Countries: A Comparative Analysis, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper (WPS4136), February 2007
14. Hansen, J.: Global Warming Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near 
15. Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future. By Peter D. Ward. Publisher: Collins (March 25, 2008)
16. Peter J. Mayhew, Gareth B. Jenkins and Timothy G. Benton, 2007:  A long-term association between global temperature and biodiversity, origination and extinction in the fossil record. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 275:1630 (47-53), 2008
17. J.H.Lawton and R.M.May, Extinction rates, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
18. Stern et al (2006) Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change, HM Treasury
19. NASA Earth Observatory - Satellite sees ocean plants increate
20. An annual update of the global carbon budget and trends – by the Global Carbon Project, a shared partnership between various international climate research programs.
21. High sensitivity of peat decomposition to climate change through water-table feedback. Takeshi Ise, Allison L. Dunn, Steven C. Wofsy  &  Paul R. Moorcroft. Nature Geoscience. Published online: 12 October 2008
22. The Right to Development in a Climate Constrained World – the Greenhouse Development Rights framework. A report by Paul Baer and Tom Athanasiou of EcoEquity and Sivan Kartha of the Stockholm Environment Institute, with the support of Christian Aid and the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation. Second edition coming soon.
23. Recent Greenhouse Gas Concentrations, by Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center - http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html
24. Facts provided by Craig S. Altemose, Co-Coordinator of Massachusetts Power Shift, and Co-Chair of National Association of Environmental Law Societies.
25. Annual Arctic Report Card Shows Stronger Effects of Warming – From National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Oct16, 2008.