OCEANS RISING FAST

was the headline yesterday in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Glaciers and ice sheets on opposite ends of the Earth are melting faster than previously thought and could cause sea levels around the world to rise as much as 13 to 20 feet by the end of the century, scientists are reporting today. If the researchers' estimates are correct, a rise in ocean waters projected by the new studies not only would drown many of the low-lying inhabited atolls and islands that are already endangered by rising ocean waters, it also would threaten coastal cities and harbors on every continent.

Scientists have been warning for decades that greenhouse gases from autos and industry are warming the planet and raising the seas, but the studies appearing today in the journal Science are the first to suggest that sea levels could climb as high as 20 feet as a result of global warming. The studies by two teams of researchers are the first to combine data on long-term climate change and sea ice melting from both the north and south polar regions.

Are we living in a science fiction movie? Because it's this kind of headline that the camera fixes on, with dramatic music underneath. Yet this is a real one.

We know we're not living in a science fiction movie because the next scene would have all the world leaders gathered to decide what to do about this crisis. When in the real world they are much more level-headed. Well, level-headed on the greens. On the fairways they bend a little, as their foursome of lobbyists and corporate racketeers chuckles about Miami disappearing under the waves in a few decades. But Jeb will be out of office down there by then, so who cares...

Meanwhile those dizzy scientists, unaware that they are tools of green nazis and the liberal media conspiracy, are saying in relatively plain English:

"This is a real eye-opener set of results," said geoscientist Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona, who led one of two teams of university and government climatologists. "We need to start serious measures to reduce greenhouse gases within the next decade, (and) if we don't do something soon, we're committed to 4 to 6 meters (13 to 20 feet) of sea level rise in the future."

The premier climate scientist in the world, NASA's James Hansen's reaction:"The further implication is that we have to get serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions now, not wait 15 years until some magic new technology is available."

Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton geoscientist and member of the university's Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences Program, agreed with Hansen. "These are important papers," he said in an interview, "because they provide new insights into the effects of temperature change on melting ice at both poles. They show how even modest increases in global temperatures could put the Earth in a dangerous spot. We don't have to know for sure how fast the glaciers and polar ice sheets would disappear to realize that this is a serious warning, and by the end of this century we could be locked into an irreversible trend that no technology could reverse."

The conclusions of these scientists came after studies involving several methods of discerning temperatures in the past. The advanced state of glacier melt is confirmed by satellite imagery, the Chronicle story says. The New York Times adds that observation of the glaciers themselves indicates that ice is breaking apart in warming periods, evidence that the process is underway sooner than expected.

"Models are important, but measurements tell the real story," Dr. Zwally said. "During the last 10 years, we have seen only about 10 percent of the greenhouse warming expected during the next 100 years, but already the polar ice sheets are responding in ways we didn't even know about only a few years ago."

But of course these are all delusional radical Muslim Frenchmen who hate our freedom. For the truth on the climate crisis, best check out the sites where rabid right plagarists foam at the mouth on command.But for the sane among us, what does this all mean? This is just--if you pardon the expression---the tip of the iceberg.

This is the interface of the ongoing Climate Crisis we face now with the Earth=Mars doomsday scenario we begin to enter if we don't pay attention and change our ways. From last year to the end of the century, no matter what we do to limit greenhouse gases, we will face Climate Crisis problems. We can ignore them, as we apparently are currently ignoring the prospect of another devastating hurricane season. Or we can deal with them one by one, as if they aren't related, which means we won't anticipate them well enough or in enough time to apply resources most efficiently or even prevent some problems (by protecting cities against sea surges, for instance), or to prepare for them far enough in advance. Only when you see the pattern can you develop a real strategy.

Or we can get over ourselves, stop this immense waste of time and energy, acknowledge the reality of global heating and the Climate Crisis, and do what even those cheap 1950s science fiction films do---get serious about what we can get together and do about it. First, to deal with the problems that could happen because of the heating that is going to happen (caused by greenhouse gases in the past decades), and then significantly lessen the heating we're now creating and will create in the next decade, so that by the end of the century, we might still have coastal cities and a few fellow species to rebuild the planet with.

If you want to get more specific on global heating, what its effects are likely to be and what some "solutions" being researched look like, you can go to this page, where you'll also find more before and after glacier photos.