Global warming is now all but universally accepted by scientists, and even the public is starting to (slowly) come around to recognizing the crisis. While many big corporations are spending millions of dollars denying climate change, trying to protect their profits from regulations that might limit their emissions, their efforts have not been entirely successful. Extremist right-wing groups are trying to convince Americans that climate change is a scientific conspiracy trying to force people into accepting a "green lifestyle". While this claim doesn't make a lot of sense, it still has a decent acceptance rate.
While scientists and environmentalists are begging people to take a stand against climate change and adopt a sustainable lifestyle, it would look like people aren't yet doing enough. Global carbon dioxide emission levels this year increased 2.6% from last year, and 58% over 1900 levels. While this is below the average increase since 2000, it is still considerably above the annual increase in the 1980s and 1990s. Due to the rapid increase, scientists are now predicting that their earlier estimate of a 2C global temperature rise may have been too optimistic. Worse, the rise is highest at the poles, which means that we're more likely to see large amounts of ice melt, raising the sea level. For low-lying countries like Denmark and the Netherlands, this will be problematic indeed.
New evidence is suggesting that increasing global temperatures could have a much larger-than-expected impact on forests. It has long been known that climate change, with droughts and higher temperatures, could have an unpleasant affect on plants, particularly those in challenging climates. A new study has shown that many more tree species than expected are already operating on the brink of collapse, and that we will likely lose many of them to climate change in the coming years.
The vast majority of global warming comes from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas). These release great amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere--far more than can be easily absorbed by plants and re-stored. Nuclear power would make an excellent solution to this--while it is not perfect, as there is the radioactive waste, the carbon output is extremely low. However, poor public opinion makes this an unlikely path to prosperity. Forward-thinking countries like Germany are embracing clean energy sources such as wind and solar--but such methods have little support here in the United States (and are widely regarded as too expensive in developing countries like China and India).
There have been some moves to use carbon sequestration technologies in order to lower the environmental impact of coal, but this is fundamentally not the right way to go about things. While it is better for the environment than no such features, the benefit is relatively small and the cost high. Fundamentally, there is no way to make coal a clean energy source--we need to move away from it as fast as possible.
The danger of climate change are real and considerable. While it is not fully known what will happen when the planet warms, scientists realize that it will mean bigger and more frequent hurricanes, the extinction of some species, and the inundation of low-lying areas. It is up to all of us to take steps to solve this before it is too late.
