...Democratic and Republican, liberal and conservative and Tea-Party and Green and Libertarian, young and old, and for generations to come. And yes, it is because of the election results. With the Republicans back in charge of the House, and beholden to both the batshit-crazy anti-science know-nothings of their base on the one hand, and the fossil-fuel corporate giants who poured so much outside money into their campaigns, on the other, it is absolutely guaranteed that no meaningful action on climate change, cap-and-trade, and alternative-energy production will be taken over the next two years. Even if the Democrats come roaring back in 2012, it will still take another year before they could cobble together and pass a useful bill to address this problem, and years after that to produce a meaningful impact.
And by then, it will clearly be too late. We are now almost at 390ppm carbon dioxide in the summertime, with an increase of about 1.9ppm per year. Business-as-usual will drive us to 400ppm carbon dioxide by 2016. Even if Obama is re-elected and the Democrats retake the House, the strongest action that can get by a Republican minority in alliance with conservative Dems, at that point, will still mean close to business-as-usual emissions for many years to come thereafter. 450ppm is in sight within a couple of decades. It's too little, too late.
Because of this (from the National Snow and Ice Data Center):
That's the minimum of Arctic sea ice in 2010. It's almost as low as the all-time minimum in 2007. The orange line shows the extent of ice cover we should typically expect; what we have are hundreds of thousands of square miles of open water that would normally be frozen over.
But actually it's worse, because of this:
That's the VOLUME of Arctic sea ice. It is plunging because the older and thicker multi-year ice is disappearing rapidly, and what we see as large areas refreeze is thin first-year ice that will melt away just as rapidly in the Spring and Summer. Arctic experts have proclaimed that the sea ice is in a 'Death spiral' and that the Arctic as it has existed fort housands of years is gone. The IPCC reports had predicted that summer sea ice in the Arctic could disappear by the late 21st century. They were wrong - as it turns out, the models were too conservative. Summer sea ice could disappear this decade.
As the sea ice disappears the Arctic warms even more rapidly due to decreased albedo - less of the Sun's radiation is reflected back into space due to lost ice cover, and the exposed waters warm to an ever-greater degree. This should make you even more scared, because of this:
That's the Greenland ice cap, melting. Summer melt is lasting longer and longer, as seen in the purple and red. As a result, the ice cap is losing mass, and the trend is accelerating. All of that water goes into the ocean. And that means that all IPCC models of sea level rise during the 21st century are wrong. They are too conservative - they do not take into account the possibility of accelerated melt from the massive Greenland ice cap. Of course, they also don't take into account the possibility of accelerated melt from the even-more-massive Antarctic ice cap. Despite what the climate deniers would have you believe, it is now established that temperatures are climbing in the Antarctic.
It doesn't help, of course, that glaciers worldwide are melting too.
And of course, the temperatures keep rising. Take a look at what has happened in the United States this year (from the excellent CapitalClimate site).
When the frequency of record highs is outpacing record lows by 3 or 4 to 1, you've got a pretty obvious pattern. The U.S., of course, makes up less than 2% of the Earth's surface. What's going on elsewhere? How about 17 nations setting all-time high temperature records this year? Now if you think something like that could happen just by random chance in the absence of warming...then you're a conservative.
I don't have any answer, or solution, for all this. I do know that we will continue to build up our 'green' energy supply with more wind power and solar power and geothermal power and hydropower. I do know that we will continue to electrify the transportation sector with plug-in hybrids and all-electric cars and trucks. But in the absence of strong government action, this will happen too slowly to change the trajectory of emissions in a meaningful way over the next few decades. And that will mean enormous problems for the United States and for the world.
And we now have a Republican Congress filled with people who don't even believe that there's a problem, let alone want to do anything about it. Who will be on, or leading key committees (like Energy and oversight)? GOP Rep. Barton, who famously apologized to BP for how President Obama was 'shaking them down' to make them pay for the massive damages caused by their oil spill in the gulf. GOP Rep. Shimkus, who believes we don't need to worry about global warming because God promised Noah he would never again destroy the world by flood. GOP Rep. Sensenbrenner, who wants to investigate climate scientists for fraud. GOP Rep. Upton, who wants to investigate climate scientists for fraud. And GOP Rep. Issa, who wants to investigate climate scientists for fraud. Never mind the fact that multiple investigations have exonerated the scientists involved. Folks, these are the people who will be able to control climate and energy policy for the next two years.
And the temperatures rise. And the ice melts. And the band plays on.
Update: I actually do NOT mean to sound like an apocalyptic gloom-and-doomer. What I mean by "too late" is that the climate system is already committed to several degrees more warming in this century (more likely, in the next few decades). There will be no bold, sweeping action within the next few years in the U.S. What we can do now is work to turn the Republicans back out of office and push the Democrats for a serious commitment to emissions reductions. But we will still have to face significant temperature increase and sea-level rise and major risk to coastal cities in the U.S. and worldwide, even if we succeed in this.