UPDATE:The watchdog blog that has been documenting much of the climate-denier spin over Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” just published a point-by-point summary. Check out Myths and falsehoods about global warming from Media Matters.
Climate change has already begun to trigger big differences in Alaska and the Arctic: new coastal erosion and flooding, retreating glaciers, greening tundra, ailing forests, insect outbreaks, shifts in fish and wildlife, and warming permafrost.
Last week, as the Earth exited the warmest winter on record, climate scientists at the National Ice and Snow Data Center published a study saying summer sea ice will almost certainly disappear within a generation.
“The take home message from my perspective is that a human influence on the Arctic’s shrinking sea ice cover is a lock, and that as we continue to lose ice, we will start to see effects extending beyond the Arctic,” NSIDC climate scientist Mark Serreze told Far North Science.
Add it all up, and the threat of global warming constitutes a “true planetary emergency,” former Vice President Al Gore told several Congressional panels on March 21 in Washington, D.C. But it’s not too late for Congress to act.