What a wonderful world we will no longer live in.

Ugh.

Global Warming Close to Becoming Irreversible

Here's a slice -

As emissions grow, scientists say the world is close to reaching thresholds beyond which the effects on the global climate will be irreversible, such as the melting of polar ice sheets and loss of rainforests.


"This is the critical decade. If we don't get the curves turned around this decade we will cross those lines," said Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University's climate change institute, speaking at a conference in London.

Despite this sense of urgency, a new global climate treaty forcing the world's biggest polluters, such as the United States and China, to curb emissions will only be agreed on by 2015 - to enter into force in 2020.

And another -

Increased CO2 in the atmosphere has also turned oceans more acidic as they absorb it. In the past 200 years, ocean acidification has happened at a speed not seen for around 60 million years, said Carol Turley at Plymouth Marine Laboratory.


This threatens coral reef development and could lead to the extinction of some species within decades, as well as to an increase in the number of predators.

Ah, but wait - there's more!

Climate Change Poses Disaster Risk for Most of the Planet

Yeah ...

Some areas may be rendered uninhabitable by changing patterns of extreme weather, says the new report, which identifies small island states and large coastal cities threatened by sea level rise as likely examples.


"When you look around the world, there are lots of places that are marginal for one reason or another," Field said. "Climate change can impose additional stresses on top of the stresses that are already occurring, and the indications are that for areas that are kind of close to the border line, additional stresses might make them uninhabitable."

(h/ts to The Disaffected Lib here, and here.)