For those of you living in caves for the last few decades and decided to come out and see what this Intertube thing is all about, Global Climate change is the widely accepted theory that mankind has been screwing itself very badly since the beginnings of the industrial revolution and in less than a hundred years at least part of the consequences will be felt in the form of drastic climate shifts, a rise in sea levels and general bad feelings.  For those who still doubt the existence and/or cause of GCC, please go here before reading the rest.  The bad news is that it's coming, it's going to be bad, and the longer we go without doing anything the harder it will be to reverse or even stop it.

The good news:  We will probably lose Florida completely.

   What do we do about it?  Well that is what the next two decades of argument will probably determine.  There are some who think that it is hopeless; that we have passed a so-called 'tipping point' where the climate is on it's way and even completely shutting down the industrial revolution won't stop most of the most damaging effects from being felt.  Most people still think there is a chance (if only a slim one) and are working to convince the people and governments of the world to act and act relatively quickly.  There is also a small and dwindling (but still powerful) opposition to any such changes.  Their arguments range from learning to live with the inevitable to the idea that this change will be beneficial and most agree that the drastic changes required will be prohibitively expensive anyway so we shouldn't destroy our civilization in a vain attempt to halt what they consider to be inevitable or extremely likely events.

   In any case, since governments act with the reaction time of a snail on Prozac, relatively quickly means a few decades.  Plans are currently in place to bring the growth of emissions to a stand-still, possibly even reduce overall emissions of "greenhouse gasses" (eg methane, CO2, nitrogen, etc) down by significant amounts (up to 20%) within 15-20 years.  Many scientists and activists are calling for even more drastic measures to be taken.

   Related to Global Climate Change is the rapid decline of the production of fossile fuels.  Regardless of the need to reduce emissions for the sake of the environment, scarcity of oil and coal will force us to reduce emissions anyway, albeit slower than experts say is needed.

   In order to maintain our economies: transportation and energy production in the face of these two threats, we must find alternate fuels, and we must find them fast.  Gasoline prices are already at record levels, and seem set to go nowhere but up from now on until the last drop is squeezed out of the planets crust.

   The documents and the excerps below seek to impart the details of Global Climate Change and the state of the Earths climate.  The News forum off the main page will keep track of progress on alternate fuels and the curbing emissions.

CO₂ makes up roughly about 0.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere by volume. Methane? 0.0002%. Methane is in fact a more efficient greenhouse gas than CO₂, but there’s so much less of it that the overall effect is much lower. Methane’s contribution to the greenhouse effect is only about half or less that of carbon dioxide.