It's Worse

The final piece of a quartet of global warming reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has now been released.  And just as previous iterations of the report have indicated, our projections of global warming haven't kept up with the pace of the real thing.

"If you look at the overall picture of impacts, both those occurring now and those projected for the future, they appear to be both larger and appearing earlier than we thought [in our 2001 report]," Martin Parry, co-chair of the impacts working group, told BBC News.

"Some of the changes that we previously projected for around 2020 or 2030 are occurring now, such as the Arctic melt and shifts in the locations of various species."

This year's predictions include 75-250 million additional people being short of fresh water (that's 15-50 cities the size of Atlanta running out of water).  20-30% of species at risk of extinction.  And a massive 50% reduction of food produced from much of the world's farmland.

Frightening as all this sounds, based on our track record, the biggest question is: how badly are we undershooting the actual effects this time?

This afternoon, grist.org will webcast the first Presidential Forum on Global Warming and America’s Energy Future.  All the candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, were invited to attend.  Clinton will be there.  Edwards will be there.  Kucinich will be there.  The rest of the Democratic candidates -- and all of the Republicans -- took a pass.

The webcast starts at 2:00PM PST.  Watch it on grist, and check in here for live blogging of the event.