The recent American Geophysical Union's annual meeting featured…

The recent American Geophysical Union's annual meeting featured a talk that presented computer stimulation of planetary futures if human activity continued on its present course. Such meetings are generally stable affairs. But the findings motivated this scientist to title his presentation "Is Earth F**ked?" Meanwhile, halfway around the globe in Doha, climate change negotiators continued to niddle with treaty text as the planet gradually burns. While the negotiators may save the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change as a stop sign until a new international treaty is negotiated in 2015, none of it is likely to be anywhere near enough. Emissions continue to rise ever faster, making it unlikely that average temperature decreases will fall below 2 degrees Celsius, the avowed target. Instead, the world is on course for at least 4 degrees C of warming. Already, with slightly less than 1 degree C of warming, places like the Arctic have become unrecognizable. In other words, the predictions that scientists made way back in 1990 have been spot on as far as temperature changes go. Let's hope the present failure to bake action against climate change doesn't make today's dire predictions hopelessly optimistic.