James Howard Kunstler on Global warming

“Global warming is no longer a theory being disputed by political interests, but an established scientific consensus. The possible effects range from events as drastic as a hydrothermal shutdown of the Gulf Stream—meaning a much colder Europe with much-reduced agriculture—to desertification of major world crop-growing areas, to the invasion of temperate regions by diseases formerly limited to the tropics, to the loss of harbor cities all over the world. Whether the cause of global warming is human activity and “greenhouse emissions,” a result of naturally occurring cycles, or a combination of the two, this does not alter the fact that it is having swift and tremendous impacts on civilization [...].”

“An overwhelming majority of scientists who have looked into the matter agree that global warming is underway and is probably caused by people burning fossil fuels. This is the meta-fact hovering over all the details. After all, in [mining and] burning so much coal, oil, and gas we've released [a fraction of] 460 million years of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere in a mere two hundred years. There are consequences for doing this. The trajectory of climate problems has gotten only more severe [...]. Greenhouse gas emissions have exceeded predictions. The IPCC report expects a sea level rise of at least three feet by 2100; James Hansen of NASA says possibly seventeen feet. If that is the case, there would be no need to argue over the finer points of how many square miles in the Netherlands would be underwater [...] along with Bangladesh, many Pacific islands, most of Florida, and the Mississippi River Delta, Houston, Jacksonville, Key West, and thousands of other places. [We need to] remember [that] most of the people on the planet live near the world’s seacoasts.”