Decade of 2000s Will Be Warmest Ever, Scientists Say

It dawned with the warmest winter on record in the United States. And when the sun sets this New Year’s Eve, the decade of the 2000s will end as the warmest ever on global temperature charts.

‘CLIMATE INACTION COSTS LIVES’ — Using fire ladders, firemen and police attempt to arrest Greenpeace protesters who scaled the walls and draped a banner on the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Monday December 7, 2009. (Photo/The Canadian Press/Fred Chartrand)

Warmer still, scientists say, lies ahead.

Through 10 years of global boom and bust, of breakneck change around the planet, of terrorism, war and division, all people everywhere under that warming sun faced one threat together: the buildup of greenhouse gases, the rise in temperatures, the danger of a shifting climate, of drought, weather extremes and encroaching seas, of untold damage to the world humanity has created for itself over millennia.

As the decade neared its close, the U.N. gathered presidents and premiers of almost 100 nations for a “climate summit” to take united action, to sharply cut back the burning of coal and other fossil fuels.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told them they had “a powerful opportunity to get on the right side of history” at a year-ending climate conference in Copenhagen.

Once again, however, disunity might keep the world’s nations on this side of making historic decisions.

“Deep down, we know that you are not really listening,” the Maldives’ Mohamed Nasheed told fellow presidents at September’s summit.   Read more here.

I feel sorry for the Maldives and every other beautiful island nation, but it’s too late for them already, even if we stop all CO2 emissions tomorrow.  There is a temperature build-up already in the atmosphere that will be there for a long time whether we continue to pollute any more or not and it will make the ice continue to melt and the oceans continue to warm. The Maldives need to relocate their people.

By the way, it’s now completely accurate to call CO2 pollution. Yesterday the EPA carried through on its endangerment finding on CO2 and other GHGs and said they are nasty stuff in high concentrations and have to be regulated. Watch out, Big Coal. The EPA is coming for you and millions of people are cheering them on.