Yes, it really makes you want to cry. After 4.5 billion years in the making (13.7 billion years if you consider the prerequisites) our world is finally falling apart:

Exponentially growing economy >> exceeding the limits >> collapsing ecosystems >> ecocide >> omnicide >> ”marsification" of blue marble.

The thing that is most tragic is that these negative externalities are likely to be greatest in ecosystem realms outside of the U.S. first. If the U.S. is unaffected, we are far less likely to take action. As we have seen with the aftermath of Katrina, disasters are the greatest impetus for starting conversations about global environmental problems. Should I hope for more U.S. disasters to wake our people up?

A study, led by University of Southern California geologist Lowell Stott, concluded deep-sea temperatures rose 1,300 years before the rise in atmospheric CO2, which would rule out the greenhouse gas as the main agent of the meltdown.

"There has been this continual reference to the correspondence between CO2 and climate change as reflected in ice core records as justification for the role of CO2 in climate change," said Stott. "You can no longer argue that CO2 alone caused the end of the ice ages."

Betty Lou: While I understand that historic climate change is not solely due to CO2 increases, we are talking about completely divergent time scales here. The warming that caused the end of the last ice age occurred over >1000 years; the warming we are seeing now is considerably quicker? Stott clearly states that "the study does not question the fact that CO2 plays a key role in climate". Let's not distort the facts.