Tomgram: Michael Klare, Shooting Up on Big Energy

By Michael Klare
Posted on April 1, 2014, Printed on April 5, 2014
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175825/

Pssst, buddy, you want a report?

Hey, I’ve got three for you, all in the news last week! There was a rare intervention by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which issued a report warning that “the rate of climate change now may be as fast as any extended warming period over the past 65 million years, and it is projected to accelerate in the coming decades.” There was a risk, it added, “of abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially irreversible changes in the earth’s climate system with massively disruptive impacts,” including the possible “large scale collapse of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, collapse of part of the Gulf Stream, loss of the Amazon rain forest, die-off of coral reefs, and mass extinctions.” Then there was the prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest grim assessment, whose key message is: “It's not just about melting ice, threatened animals, and plants. It's about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees, and war becoming worse,” or as one of the scientists writing the report put it, “The polar bear is us.” And, of course, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization released its annual report last week, pointing out that, though we are only 14 years into a new century, 13 of them fall into the category of warmest ever recorded.