Read about the cost of inaction here.

*** New study on climate change reported by the Associated Press on September 23, 2009 ***

WASHINGTON — New satellite information shows that ice sheets in Greenland and western Antarctica continue to shrink faster than scientists thought and in some places are already in runaway melt mode.

British scientists for the first time calculated changes in the height of the vulnerable but massive ice sheets and found them especially worse at their edges. That's where warmer water eats away from below. In some parts of Antarctica, ice sheets have been losing 30 feet a year in thickness since 2003, according to a paper published online Thursday in the journal Nature.

Some of those areas are about a mile thick, so they've still got plenty of ice to burn through. But the drop in thickness is speeding up. In parts of Antarctica, the yearly rate of thinning from 2003 to 2007 is 50 percent higher than it was from 1995 to 2003. Read the rest of the article here.

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The debate is over. Global warming is real. It’s happening now and without significant action to reduce carbon emissions within the next decade, scientists predict that the consequences could be severe and potentially irreversible.

The Earth has already warmed and there is now more carbon pollution in the atmosphere than at any point in 650,000 years.

Average global temperatures had risen 0.74 degrees C (1 degree F) over the past century. The pace of sea-level rise, from heat expansion and melting land ice, increased in the late 20th century.

An additional 2-degree increase in temperature would equal the warmest temperatures on Earth in 500,000 years. At that point in time, sea levels were 16 feet higher. Three million years ago, the Earth’s temperature was 5 degrees warmer and sea levels were 80 feet higher.

Although life can survive significant increases in temperature, global warming will leave us with a vastly different planet than the one we inherited. The potential consequences of catastrophic global warming include:

• Increased flooding on coastal regions as sea levels continue to rise. If sea levels rise by 80 feet, more than 50 million Americans would be displaced from their homes.
• Heat waves will become more frequent and intense. More than 30,000 people died in western Europe as a result of record high temperatures in 2003.
• The loss of up to 50 percent of all species on Earth. Species living at the extremes -- the poles or high altitudes -- such as the polar bear are the most vulnerable. But as the oceans warm, countless other species also will face extinction.
• Droughts and wildfires will occur more often, as has been the case with the surge in wildfires across the West in recent years.