[quote]The costs of inaction on climate change will be "catastrophic", according to US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Mr Kerry was responding to a major report by the UN which described the impacts of global warming as "severe, pervasive and irreversible".
He said dramatic and swift action was required to tackle the threats posed by a rapidly changing climate.
Our health, homes, food and safety are all likely to be threatened by rising temperatures, the report says.
Scientists and officials meeting in Japan say the document is the most comprehensive assessment to date of the impacts of climate change on the world.
In a statement, Mr Kerry said: "Unless we act dramatically and quickly, science tells us our climate and our way of life are literally in jeopardy. Denial of the science is malpractice.[/quote]
Welp. We've past the point of no return now guys. Everyone is now going to be affected by climate change. It's pretty sad, because it [i]was[/i] initially preventable.
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Well, "not reversible" isn't quite accurate. It's not reversible within our projected lifetimes, or within a time-frame that can avoid nasty repercussions from continued human intervention on the climate, but we still have the power to mitigate those repercussions, and to start a path for overall biome recovery in the future. I don't want people thinking "Oh, we're past the point of no return. Let's just go whole hog because -blam!- it."