From the Title, I'm sure some will assume this Diary is somehow about efforts to give our worthless Congressional Democrats even more power to do absolutely nothing, which is clearly the only power they are actually willing to exercise, but it isn't.
Others might think it's yet another Cheney Impeachment Diary, since we are running pretty short on those, but it isn't.
It also isn't about the War on Unpatented Drugs, or the so-called War on Terror, or about Republicans who find the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance more vital than the entire text of the Fourth Amendment.
Many Kossacks (and others) exert considerable effort into trying to head off Global Warming, whether by installing solar panels or buying hybrid or electric cars or using public transportation, or through efforts at public education about the dangers. Their hearts are in the right place but they are at least three decades too late.
Everyone has by now seen the recent reports that warming is proceding faster than almost anybody predicted. Utah is warming faster than the rest of the world; Australia is warming faster than the rest of the world; The Arctic is warming faster; Antarctica is warming faster; Lake Superior is warming faster; the waters around Japan are warming faster...
That's not the bad news.
We are now experiencing the fastest mass extinction in the history of the planet, and it's accellerating. Large parts of the U.S. are experiencing historic droughts, and it's going to get worse.
That's not the bad news.
Carbon dioxide has a "half life" of about 100 years once released into the atmosphere, or used to. The carbon sinks that historically absorbed half of released CO2 within a century, the oceans and forests, are full or disappearing, so going forward from now CO2 will stay in the atmosphere trapping even more heat longer than it has been (which got us to this point).
That's not the bad news.
The bad news.
The bad news.
Methane is variously reported as being anywhere between 20 and 30 times more effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2, but has a shorter effective lifespan in the atmosphere, or did before the carbon sinks filled up. And the huge storehouses of methane in the Arctic are just now starting to be released.
Our current warming is the result of CO2 released 40+ years ago; more recent emissions really haven't started to bite. No matter what humans do in the next 20 years (and all indications are that they will continue to increase their production of greenhouse gas), warming will continue to accellerate faster than practically all computer models can account for because of the positive feedback loop kicking in with the release of methane from the melting tundra.
Dr. James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia Hypothesis and one of the very first to try to sound a warning, thinks the planet in a few decades will be able to support maybe 500 million people; I think he's optimistic.
If you really want to do something for future generations, figure out how to convey an apology across the collapse of agriculture and civilization.
Switching your lightbulbs to compact flourescents is, well, re-read the Title.