GLOBAL MELTDOWN
The catalogue of disasters that are happening right now
Across the planet, rising temperatures are taking their toll
CARBON DIOXIDE
New research has found that levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - the main cause of global warming - are higher than at any time in the past 625,000 years. HOTTEST EVER
This year is expected to be the warmest ever recorded; 1998 was the hottest so far, but the past three years currently occupy the next three places.
DESERTIFICATION
The giant Kalahari desert, already four times the size of Britain, threatens to become larger still, covering farmland in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.
EXPANDING OCEANS
The level of the world's seas and oceans is rising twice as fast as in the past, as their waters expand in rising temperatures and glaciers melt.
OCEAN EXILES
The people of the Carteret Islands, a scattering of atolls off Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific, have started to leave as their homes succumb to rising seas.
HURRICANES
Hurricane Epsilon - the 14th of the year - is forming in the Atlantic, even though the worst recorded hurricane season by far formally ended on Wednesday.
GLACIER MELT
Greenland glaciers have suddenly started racing towards the sea and melting. Much the same is beginning to happen to glaciers in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.
WATER SHORTAGE
Areas such as the western USA, which depend on mountain snows for their water supplies, are running short as less snow falls - and what does fall melts earlier.
DISAPPEARING SPECIES
Sealife and birdlife have declined catastrophically this year along America's north-west Pacific coast, after a similar meltdown in the North Sea.
CORAL REEFS
Corals on the Great Barrier Reef are bleaching out and dying as sea temperatures rise and scientists fear that the whole reef may perish by 2050.
Also in this section
Global warming: nothing to do with human action, an illusion, a minor irritant, a technical problem that can be managed by normal development, or the most serious threat to the world after nuclear war?
What do you think? Add your comments, join the debate.
Is it happening? I do think so. Is it serious? Very much so. Can it be fixed? Not by technical or economical means alone.
My main concern is how to help raise awareness of this phenomenon. How can a general public debate about global warming and climate change be fostered? Do we need to "market" new ideas? Do we need to "advertise" alternative green ways, ways integral in the web of life?
Climate Change seems to be a much milder term than Global Warming. Even Global Warming may mean something positive for some, as we associate warmth with something to strive for. Maybe Global Heating or even Global Scorching are better terms to use? ~Hans
FromWhat to do about climate change? British activists debate:
Phil Thornhill (Campaign against Climate Change):
"To anybody who cares about the future of the planet, the destabilisation of climate should be an emergency. Telling that to people – over and over again – will certainly be a turn off. But if it’s true, you cannot not tell them.
That is why I do not think that “sugaring the pill” in any way really helps. Anything that belittles the scale of the climate threat is a betrayal of the many people who stand to suffer grievously from it in the future. And trying to make climate change campaigning “more like” other types of campaigning, or to express it in the language of campaigns we are more familiar with, misses the point that climate change is a totally different – utterly unprecedented – kind of problem.
I do not really think that we must use a special kind of language, and am doubtful that some new tactic will suddenly make the job easier. In the end we just need to continue telling the truth as we see it.
If the “language of empowerment” means offering people solutions and positive things they can do at every stage, then that should always go together with making people aware of the frightening scale of the problem. But “optimism” should never come at the expense of obscuring the ugly reality of the threat we face. Only if we correctly assess it will we be able to take action that is effective and not just a palliative. We need to be aware that we are involved in a desperate race against time."