Getting Lost in the Headlines - We're All Doomed

Hey - it got your attention, didn't it? So McCain is going to debate after all, the economy is still a mess and everyone's pointing fingers at everyone else. But there is something more important than politics and the economy, and that is our existence. Getting lost in the headlines is the most recent news from scientists that the planet's carbon levels are going up faster and higher than even the most dire and worst case scenarios have plotted. As the WaPo noted today, scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the U/Cal/San Diego published research showing that even if humans stopped generating greenhouse gases immediately, the world's average temperature would "most likely" increase by 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century. Not only that, but our oceans & forests are only absorbing 54% of our carbon dioxide emissions anymore, down 3% from 1959-2000. That is to say, not only are can't the planet recover from our fun & games even if we all stop today, the built-in air clarification system the planet came with starting to fail.

The one piece of good news in this for me personally is that although I can't afford beach front property now, I can afford property that is miles inland - and by the time I'm retiring, that will be beach front. And here I thought that the planet wouldn't be screwed over until long after I was dead.