How long can you tread water?

Not long? Maybe buying that mountain cabin makes more sense now...

Over the past 30 years, temperatures in the Arctic have been creeping up, rising half a degree Celsius with attendant increases in glacial melting and decreases in sea ice. Experts predict that at current levels of greenhouse gases--carbon dioxide alone is at 375 parts per million--the earth may warm by as much as five degrees Celsius, matching conditions roughly 130,000 years ago. Now a refined climate model is predicting, among other things, sea level rises of as much as 20 feet, according to research results published today in the journal Science.

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Such a sea level rise would permanently inundate low-lying lands like New Orleans, southern Florida, Bangladesh and the Netherlands. Already sea level rise has increased to an inch per decade, thanks to melting ice and warm water expansion, according to Overpeck. And evidence that the Arctic is exponentially warming continues to accumulate. Indeed, in another paper in the same issue of Science, Goran Ekstrom of Harvard University reported a marked increase in so-called glacial earthquakes (seismic events recorded throughout the world when Greenland's glaciers slip past rock) since 2002. In fact, last year alone saw twice as many quakes as in previous years, with most of that increase coming during the summer months.

"We need to start serious measures to reduce greenhouse gases within the next decade," Overpeck says. "If we don't do something soon, we're committed to [13 to 20 feet] of sea level rise in the future."

In other news, Bush says "whatever" to global warming:

President Bush this week called on the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases warming the world to set a "long-term goal" for reducing such pollution, but was vague on how to complete the task.

"By setting this goal, we acknowledge there is a problem," President Bush told representatives of 17 nations attending the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change held in Washington, D.C., this week.

"Whaddya want?" demanded Georgie as he pouted during his speech,"I'm gonna be outa here in a buncha months. You expectin' anything more? Givin' speeches is hard work!"

I'll repeat my lolcat pic: