On Friday, a comprehensive new report will map the likely effects of global warming -- and it ain't pretty. The good news is, we can expect higher food production in northern, more affluent regions. Whee! Now the bad news: globally, we can expect increased poverty and starvation, drinking-water shortages, more infectious diseases, flooding, drought, heat waves, melting glaciers, disappearing islands, vanishing species, and the continuing popularity of reality TV. The report is the second of four expected from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this year. The first, in February -- perhaps you heard about it? -- covered the basic science. The report this Friday is on "Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability." Cheat sheet: we're vulnerable, impacts will be nasty, and we'd better adapt. But don't worry, says one scientist: "The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can't be that stupid." Ha ha! Nothing like a little humor to brighten up some cataclysmically depressing news. In a month, the IPCC will release its report on ways we can battle climate change. Finally.
Sources: Scientific American, Reuters, Alister Doyle, 02 Apr 2007, The Boston Globe, Associated Press, Seth Borenstein, 31 Mar 2007 , The New York Times, Andrew C. Revkin, 01 Apr 2007
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Don't get me wrong I am concerned about our enviroment just as much as any human being walking the earth. You are however contridicting yourself by saying there will be a higher food production but then state that there will be starvation. If and when the polar caps do melt I agree with flooding and etc. I would hope that as a human race we would however come together (which we would probably have at that point no choice) Honestly if you don't have a cheaper better solution. Especially in the next 50 years or so then we will have to just ADAPT (which the human race has proven time and time again) or we will just have to start breeding horses in mass quantities. The real question is can you go back to medival times to makes the world a better place? Oh yeah and just forget about mocha latte's the machines won't work.