Peter Pan wrote:

the planet has warmed less then .5 degrees in the past
100 years: If your refrigerator rose
by .5 degrees, who the food in there go bad?
So why is the planet in such peril?

Here are the facts:

1) The planet is not a refrigerator.

2) The average temperature shift around the world is not .5 degrees but
1.4 degrees and it is rising at a much faster rate now. The scary part
is not what has happened but what will happen. Some Pacific islands are
already being evacuated because of the increase in sea level.*

2) If you increase the temperature of a block of ice from 31F to 33F you
have melted that block of ice.

3) That is what is happening, and glaciers are melting. Average
temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at
twice the global average. Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the
region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier.

4) Mountain glaciers are disappearing also. Glaciers and mountain snows
are rapidly melting--for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has
only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910.

5) Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water
temperature, suffered the worst bleaching--or die-off in response to
stress--ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70
percent.

6) Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly
increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide,
methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat
near Earth's surface.

7) Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster
than plants and oceans can absorb it.

8) Earth has indeed experienced warming and cooling cycles roughly every
hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts, but such changes
have occurred over the span of several centuries. Today's changes have
taken place over the past hundred years or less.

9) Sea level can rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by
century's end. Rises of just 4 inches (10 centimeters) will flood many
South Seas islands and swamp large parts of Southeast Asia.

10) Some hundred million people live within 3 feet (1 meter) of mean sea
level, and much of the world's population is concentrated in vulnerable
coastal cities. In the U.S., Louisiana and Florida are especially at
risk. New Orleans was already devastated.

11) More than a million species face extinction from disappearing
habitat, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans.

12) At some point in the future, warming could become uncontrollable by
creating positive feedback. Rising temperatures release additional
greenhouse gases by unlocking methane in permafrost and undersea
deposits, freeing carbon trapped in sea ice, and causing increased
evaporation of water.

All experts expect the planet to survive just fine, but many life forms
will be lost forever. This is not about wildfires, heat waves, and
strong tropical storms, it is about survival of life as we know it.

If it was the life of one of our children, we would not think twice, but
it is the life of their space craft, earth. Don't put you head back in
the ground and deny our children and their children their home.

*
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n..._global_warmin
g.html
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18,000 gallon (17'x 47'x 2-4') lily pond garden in Zone 6
Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA