James McCarthy tells it like it's going to be

James McCarthy, President of the AAAS told it like it's gonna be if we don't watch out in his Presidential Address

The signs of a changed world are already apparent, McCarthy noted. Since 1950, the incidence of flooding and wildfires has risen dramatically on each continent. Decades-old slabs of sea ice are being replaced by thinning sheets that disappear from year to year. From the poles to the equator, climate change is threatening the livelihoods of some of the world's most vulnerable populations.

For 800,000 years, levels of heat-trapping atmospheric carbon dioxide never rose above 300 parts per million—"until now," said McCarthy. And, he added, the consensus of mainstream researchers and world science organizations is that the trend is driven by human activity.

By coincidence, the roots of the modern climate crisis are also having an anniversary year, said McCarthy. While 1859 may be best known in scientific circles for the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species by the Means of Natural Selection, it also marks the debut of the first commercial oil well, the precursor of the modern internal combustion engine, and the first demonstration that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas..

The technologies introduced in the 1850s "are those that today look to have significantly altered the planet," said McCarthy at a Thursday morning gathering of international journalists attending the Annual Meeting.

The address is available in Real Player. He is antidynamic tho. Anybunny know how to embed it into Blogger?