There is no question that the entire world is facing a real and rapidly increasing risk of global climate catastrophe.

But the climate change scientists are not formally and officially acknowledging the painfully obvious fact, which they know better than anyone.

They are not acknowledging that the world is past dangerous climate interference, and they are not urging a global emergency-scale response.

They are giving the okay to governments delaying any substantial drop in global greenhouse gas emissions for another 40 years!

The catastrophe is this... as Earth's carbon sinks (our oceans and forests) deteriorate, less carbon dioxide will be absorbed by them.

For example, warmer ocean water can hold less carbon. This is a positive feedback loop, where warming water means less carbon dioxide absorption, which means more global warming, which means less absorption by our oceans.

Even worse, a far greater positive feedback loop between warming and the thawing permafrosts of northern Canada and Siberia (which currently hold massive amounts of carbon in the form of methane) is developing.

This will result in more methane (much more potent at holding in heat) being released into the atmosphere, which will further heat it, which will further thaw the permafrost, releasing more methane, which will...

As you can see, there is a great risk that our home, Earth, will experience runaway global warming, resulting in massive climate change everywhere.

• The Greenland and Antarctic ice shelves will melt, causing ocean levels to rise. This will result in the flooding of many populated areas, including many parts of Asia, Africa and North America.
• Food crops will no longer be able to grow where we now grow them. We will have to grow them at more northerly locations (in the northern hemisphere) or more southerly locations in the southern hemisphere.
• Fish, a source of protein for hundreds of millions of people, will begin to die off as the oceans warm and currents change, causing widespread malnutrition, if not hunger.
• The deep water transport system, which moves billions of gallons of water from ocean to ocean, may stop working. This could result in an ice age in Europe, as the warm Gulf Current, which brings moderating temperatures to Europe, would stall.

These are just some of the changes our ancestors could, and likely will, experience due to this climate catastrophe.

You won't hear from politicians about the climate catastrophe that is coming, or from the leaders of big business. You won't even hear about it from some environmental organizations. You will hear about it from many respected scientists, and from some of the more future-thinking NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in North America and Europe.

This quote is from Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, while attending the UN Bali climate conference in 2007...

If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future.

This is the defining moment.

This quote comes from WorldWatch, an organization that pulls no punches when it publishes its yearly State of the World...

To avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change, world carbon emissions will have to drop to near zero.. and "go negative" after that.

State of the World 2009

Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid "dangerous climate change" regardless of how it is defined. Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of serious impacts, including the crossing of tipping points, and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult and costly.

Synthesis summary report of the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Science Congress

Just a one look at the record of record atmospheric carbon emissions should shout "Danger!" at anyone who knows that greenhouse gases heat the planet.

Since fossil fuel industrialization began, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased over 37%. The concentration of nitrous oxide has increased 19%, but the biggest shocker is that methane has increased 153%—it has more than doubled, according to the IPCC 2007 assessment.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide now exceed the natural range of the last two million years by 25%, of methane by 120% and of nitrous oxide by 9%.

The rise in carbon dioxide since the beginning of the industrial revolution (100 parts per million) is about double the normal "operating range" of carbon dioxide during glacial-interglacial cycling (180–280 ppm). That has to be catastrophically dangerous.

The levels and the accelerating rate of increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide for the last 250 years are so far without precedent.

There is also no question that generally the risk is being denied by all sectors of our society. The public is still confused about global climate change. Mixed messages on the issue still abound.

These people!

We all agree. Climate change is real.... Yet even now, few people fully understand the gravity of the threat, or its immediacy.... Now I believe we are on the verge of a catastrophe.

Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General, addressing the UN General Assembly, November 2007

We are at a crossroad. One path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other to oblivion.

Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General, addressing the UN climate convention conference, Bali 12 December 2007 (referring to the Copenhagen UN Climate Convention summit, to sign a treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol)

We have reached a point of planetary emergency... Elements of a perfect storm, a global cataclysm, are assembled... We've reached where we have a crisis, an emergency, but people don't know that. A path out of the crisis is barely still possible.

NASA's Dr. James Hansen, 2008 Public statement

The world is already experiencing "dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system." The question now is whether we can avoid catastrophic interference.

Dr. John P. Holdren, Presidential Science Advisor, USA, 2008

The potential for runaway greenhouse warming is real and has never been more clear.

UNEP Year Book 2009

For information about other aspects of our looming climate catastrophe, click on any of the red buttons on the left. Or click on a green button to learn about the only option we have to save ourselves—the zero carbon economy.