I think Nature is killing us in every possible way, and making plain that our species's choice has to be ZERO POPULATION GROWTH.

We don't inhabit this planet, we infest it. We destroy earth at each opportunity; everything on land, everything in the oceans, everything in the air and in our atmosphere. We do so in our arrogant quest for immortality and escape from a reality that does not kiss our anthropocentric ass.

Our cultures on Earth have largely been collectively disconnect from the natural instincts that once kept man in touch with the spirit in the Earth. Nature is sounding the alarm in the ways described by Erich Pica and Lester Brown and others who get it. But too many leaders in business and government are unable to sense what is going on with Nature. The media too is senseless and some in the media are outright hostile to the notion of man's contribution to the overheating atmosphere. We are in peril right now. I just wrote to this issue myself. http://www.stevedrinkard.com/archives/44

Form peer groups of like minded family and friends and start the transition from individual self motivated capitalists to more sustainable and natural living styles. This would include sharing of resources, food, land and lodging with emphasis on food growing, small cash cottage industry (could be selling something as simple selling honey), and renewable energy systems like solar and wind.

One would start slowly with the closest of friends but always with the goal of more integration toward shared and sustainable living. Creating "pockets of living environmental change" will go a long way in setting visible examples of living lifestyles for a sane world.

Emphasis should be placed on simple positive change starting with kindergarden basics like food growing and conservation methods of living and travel.

Criticism of establishment practices should be done in sympathetic manners as to have compassion for individuals still trapped in the world defeating selfish competitive lifestyles with all it's alienation, guilt and loss of connectedness, whether these people are billionaires or the homeless.

Billionaires should be looked as as people that have a deep almost pornographic compulsive bulimic greed disorder and like any ....oholic are desperately crying out (with each new vila purchase) for control, counsel and healing.

Let's get together with friends and just start the conversation about a shared and positive lifestyle. Look for small old farms or bigger houses (multiple houses) with something approaching a acre of land or more. Hell it could be better then the late 60's because this time it's for real and what do we have to lose anyway but a lot of primitive, narcissistic, capitalistic addictions.

It will sure beat holing up in your own private bunker with some gold sovereigns, survival meals and huge cash of guns and ammo and waiting to be burned out.

Set the example for the positive not the negative and we will be imitated.

We had a flood out here in North Dakota but did anyone go big on global warming back then? NO ! Natural disasters strike and POOF, the "global warming" ding-a-ling bells are at it again.

"The extreme heat -- the worst weather to occur in Russia in 1,000 years -- and the resulting acute air pollution, have caused the death rate in Moscow to double. Over 15,000 people are likely to have died in this summer's heat wave."

Heat wasn't measured the same way 1000 years ago and that 15000 number comes off a blog. Wonderblog could be right but his numbers are dubious.

"Potentially more devastating is the effect the heat has had on Russia's grain harvest. Nearly a third of it will be lost from drought and wildfires. This loss will be felt globally; Russia is currently the world's third-largest exporter of grain, and some analysts expect its export to be halved this year, causing prices to skyrocket. "

But what if they grow genetically modified wheat that can grow despite the soil and why can't rice be grown here at home and hold off on the imports?

"As Lester Brown explains in Plan B 4.0, climate disruption will have a devastating effect on our food supply."

Overblown projections. If prices of foreign imports goes up, then growing it at home will go up too. Adjustments can be made. How about growing lots of rice in TX and the southwest US and then return to business as usual?

Someone in denial, for whatever reason, such as fear of having to change one's lifestyle, or heavily influenced by the denial industry, may be called a "climate ostrich". But not those who have a stake in maintaining status quo. Those who are **actively** underplaying or distorting certain types of information should be called "climate criminals".

While my heart goes out to all the people facing disaster, reality bites. It is time to face the inevitable:

http://www.peakoil.org.au/limits.htm "...results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st Century."

What politics and social planning have not had the courage to address, nature will.

"what seems extreme now will be tomorrow's norm if we continue to ignore that these events are harbingers of climate change, and they're patterns with real human consequences."

Even if we don't ignore it, unless we go far enough in trying to correct it, what we do may be too little too late. There's a lot that can be debated certainly (only a few basic things are certain), but the conservative course of action is to do what we think is necessary now (get back down to 350ppm...which is possibly still too high), so as to avoid potential species extinction of the homo sapien sapiens (the two "sapiens" are debatable). I disagree that we are only a scourge on the planet. Humans have done some good things too!

As for individual events being due to climate change, we can't answer that yet (unfortunately) with any certainty. Remember that global warming is about average surface temperatures globally, and we are talking about long-term increases projected now in the low single digits. These extreme high temperatures tend to get averaged out by low temps elsewhere. However, the melting of Siberia (among other cool places) is a long term trend and very worrying to anyone who is paying attention.

That said, climate models do predict increasingly extreme weather events as global warming increases, so they could perhaps be held up in aggregate over time as signs of warming.

Isn't this one of the reasons we elected Obama and the Democrats? Oh wait--they betrayed us on the climate bill also! Third party anyone?

The elite are making a killing on the status quo, so don't expect them to change anything. On the contrary expect them to do whatever they can to keep things just the way they are.

First they denied the possibility that the climate might be changing. Then they denied human activity was the cause of it. Now we find ourselves in this weird place where we are having extreme weather all over the planet and it gets reported almost nonchalantly.

Here is an exchange I imagine happening in the near future between the mouthpieces of the elite, Katie Couric and Lara Logan concerning climate change.

Logan: "We are now experiencing the tenth continuous year of the warmest temperatures ever in Moscow, and records go back 1000 years".

Couric: "Is that anything to be worried about?"

Logan: "No not yet, and for two good reasons. First our records only go back 1000 years so we don't know what the previous 1000 years were like. Who knows maybe the Ruskies were hotter than hell in the previous millennium. Plus "some", well make that one or two scientists say we really need at least 1000 more years of weather data before we take any action. After all weather is not climate, and we need to know for sure the climate is really changing before we act."

Couric: "Excellent points Lara. On a different , have you decided what you are going to wear to next years White House Correspondents' Association Dinner?"

Logan: "No I don't know for sure, but most likely it will be short and sparkly. How about you?"

Couric: "No idea here yet. Now back to this climate thingy. We are seeing severe flooding in Pakistan, and the three Gorges dam in China failed last year due to flooding. We have experienced 500 year floods for the past 5 years in Europe and parts of the US. There has been a record 10 year drought in Australia, and the largest forest fires ever recorded in the US for the last three years. Any chance these could be related to climate change caused by human activity?"

Logan: "Well Katie we only have 40 years of noticeable changes in weather, and only 10 years of extreme changes, but again these are only changes in weather, and not the climate itself. It will take centuries to a millennium of collecting this weather data before we can confirm for sure any change in the climate itself."

Couric: "So does this mean we shouldn't do anything to curb CO2 emissions?"

Logan: "Nope, not a damn thing!"

Couric: "Great! I am so glad to hear you say that, Laura.

When we come back from a break with our sponsor, Trane, we will be talking to the Duggar family that were just blessed with their 25th child,. We will also speak with the doctor that confirmed Lady Gaga's third immaculate conception, and on this 25th year of the war in Afghanistan will speak with a family that has won the Dick Cheney Purple LVAD medal for having three generations of family members wounded fighting our eternal war on terror."