Now is the time to act Each day we wait, we increase the risk that we will leave our children and grandchildren an irreparably damaged planet. It is truly a moral imperative. 

Moreover, the scientific evidence of how serious this climate crisis is becoming continues to amass week after week. The Arctic is warming at an unprecedented rate. New research has given us, for the first time, a three-dimensional view of the ice cap; and researchers have told us that the entire Arctic ice cap may totally disappear in summer in as little as five years if nothing is done to curb emissions of greenhouse gas pollution. Almost half of the ice has already melted during the last 20 years. The dark ocean, once uncovered, absorbs 90% of the solar heat that used to bounce off the highly reflective ice. As a direct consequence, some of the vast amounts of frozen carbon in the permafrost surrounding the Arctic Ocean are beginning to be released as methane as the frozen tundra thaws, threatening a doubling of global warming pollution in the atmosphere. Melting of the Greenland ice sheet has reached a new record, which was a staggering 60% above the previous high in 1998. The most recent 11 summers have all experienced melting greater than the average of the past 35-year time series (1973-2007). Glacial earthquakes have been increasing as the meltwater tunnels down through the ice to the bedrock below. Were the Greenland ice sheet to melt, crack up and slip into the North Atlantic, sea level would rise almost 20 feet. We already know that the Antarctic Peninsula is warming at three to five times the global average rate. Several ice shelves have collapsed in the last 20 years. Each metre of sea-level increase leads to 100 million climate refugees. Carbon dioxide pollution is changing the very chemistry of our oceans. Ocean acidification is already under way and is accelerating. Coral polyps that make reefs and everything that makes a shell are now beginning to suffer from a kind of osteoporosis because of the 25 million tons of CO2 absorbed by the oceans every 24 hours. The Amazon, the forests of Central Africa, Siberia, and Indonesia are all now at risk. Some of the most intriguing new research is in the area of extreme weather events and rainfall. Man-made global warming has already increased the moisture content of the air worldwide, causing bigger downpours. Each additional degree of temperature increase causes another 7% increase in moisture in the air, and even larger downpours when storm conditions trigger heavy rains and snows. All-time flood records are being broken in areas throughout the world. Conversely those regions that are presently dry are projected to become much dryer, because higher average temperatures evaporate soil moisture. Australia has been experiencing what many there call a thousand-year drought, along with record high temperatures. Some cities had 110 degrees Fahrenheit for four straight days a few months ago. And then they had the mega-fires that caused so much death and destruction. A number of new studies continue to show that climate change is increasing the intensity of hurricanes. Last August, hundreds of thousands of people had to evacuate as Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast. And then there is the destruction of New Orleans, where the residents are still recovering. The same is happening in the rest of the world. Last year, Cyclone Nargis inflicted catastrophic death tolls in Burma (Myanmar), killing 20 000 people and leading to the suffering of many more. For these and many other reasons, now is the time to act. And luckily, positive change is on the way. Not next year, this year. There is too much at stake. Al Gore, founder and chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection

• 12/08/2009 09:25 - Walking together
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• 26/07/2009 15:24 - Nationalisation in history
• 01/07/2009 14:30 - G20 SUMMIT: Breaking the silence
• 01/07/2009 10:31 - Dear Head Wallah

• 12/01/2009 12:33 - Ghana's new leader