The story stated “on the hottest day, 4,000 gray-headed flying foxes dropped dead out of trees in one park.” That isn’t newsworthy? 4,000 foxes die, all in one day–because of the heat? Seems kind of catastrophic and newsworthy to me!

http://www.abc.net.au/ mediawatch/ transcripts/ s1869891.htm

It’s a myth perpetrated by sloppy journalism that continues today despite being debunked.

The insurance industry has understood global warming for years.

http://www.nebraska.tv/ Global/ story.asp?S=10658917&nav=menu605_2

In fact you might argue that hope is ultimately based on reality.

The reality is that we are in the process of a tipping action (all though you might not accept this) which is ultimately going to result in a much hostile planet for life here on Earth.

A great extinction was well underway even before the dangers of CC were distilled. Human civilization will not survive even the first rise of 2 – 3 degrees that is in the pipeline.

Hopefully, we will evolve after this event in to a planet and specie more successful at surviving and flourishing.

Without minimizing the problems that will cause for TX, OK, SoCal, etc, at least the water is still on the same continent. After all, the only reason Los Angeles exists as it does is that it gets water from the Colorado and Northern California.

On the other hand, Perth (Western Australia) is a lovely city, but already dry, and is far away from any place that might get more water, and far away from other population centers (1300 miles from Adelaide, 1700 from Melbourne). They already have opened one desalination plant … but such don’t go very far for agriculture.

Its already-minimal water will tend to fall in the Southern Ocean. See Figure 4 of that PNAS article…

Unfortunately, if there’s a first-world metropolitan area that will end up seriously downsizing due to climate change, it may well be Perth.

We humans were probably already causing an extinction event due to habitat loss, and this is adding greatly to it. I know somebody who is heavily involved in open space protection for wildlife. He told me that all that land they set aside to protect wildlife will be useless to most of the wildlife since they will need to move, so they are focusing on migration corridors. Because land this is good for particular species now probably won’t be good for those same species pretty soon.

And lastly, some of our Congress members need to fly in some of those Australian farmers to testify in Congress about that head-in-the-sand attitude. The LA Times article doesn’t seem to have a comments section, but we know that denialists are about to start spouting about alarmism in the LA Times (as well as NG). I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of those farmers were denying it just a few years ago. Nothing like hearing from the recently converted – who have seen how brutal adaptation can be.

Southwest Texas is currently experiencing its worst drought in fifty years. If you thought it was a desert already, you’ve obviously never had produce from the Rio Grande Valley — or, more likely, you did and weren’t aware of it.

I do believe the water wars (speaking proverbially) will start in Texas, not California.

No one here, that I can see, has “scared themselves into a panic.” But some of us are acutely aware of what is happening to the climate and that the best science has consistently underestimated the rate of climate change – so taking the upper bounds of SLR or global temperature or ice-free Arctic is not being “hysterical”. Those of us who understand these things are rightly concerned. We are the “clear-thinking people”.

I’m not sure what the point of this was: “Okay guys ease up a bit, global warming will be terrible for many living species, but it’s not going to extinguish all life.”

So, as long as there’s some algae and a few insects clinging to existence, that’s OK? I wonder, how many species are you happy to see eradicated before you think you’ve done enough of “easing up”?

Stick around, read, follow the science and you may gain the sense of urgency that the rest of us have.