I forgot to check today.

www.grist.org

How did you get your NYRB a day before me? I thought you guys paid the papers-a-day-late tax for being in the far corner of the country.

What I got out of it: Hansen clearly contrasts the "Do Something" vs. "Do Nothing" scenarios. "Do Nothing" results in several big feedback loops spiraling out of control: in my lifetime, either the climate will warm slightly and remain stable, or a runaway greenhouse effect causing total collapse of the ice sheets and complete thawing of the permafrost could happen, and we have but a few scant years to seal our fate. Time's a-wasting.

"[F]urther global warming exceeding two degrees Fahrenheit will be dangerous... [that] limit will be exceeded unless a change in direction can begin during the current decade. Unless this fact is widely communicated, and decision-makers are responsive, it will soon be impossible to avoid climate change with far-ranging undersirable consequences. We have reached a critical tipping point...

"[W]e have at most ten years -- not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions. Our previous decade of inaction has made the task more difficult, since emissions in the developing world are accelerating... [I]f we stay on the business-as-usual course, disastrous effects are no further from us than we are from the Elvis era."

The chilling preface, alluding to Bush's censorship: "His opinions are expressed here, he writes, 'as personal views under the protection of the First Amendment.,,' "