"A growing body of scientific opinion suggests the world may be about to experience not a gradual rise in temperatures over several decades but a wild careening into climate chaos.A growing body of scientific opinion suggests the world may be about to experience not a gradual rise in temperatures over several decades but a wild careening into climate chaos."

This balanced article (quote above is a LInk) notes a major concern: Though scientific opinion is divided on whether we face a gradual warming or a possibly rapid change, the political planners are only considering the gradual possibility.

Should those who see a ‘wild careening’ into massive changes be right, we will be totally unprepared to cope with those changes.

These pictures from a NASA satellite graphically show the degree of ice loss in one year- its frightening how fast this open water is appearing. Even more troubling is the feedback effect: Open water absorbs heat unlike ice which reflects it. This will speed up the melt even more.
Please note, this ice loss is perennial ice, ice that normally appears every year and will no longer do so.

Check out the Cyclean, a bicycle-powered washer/dryer invented by a Brit named Alex Gadsden from parts scavenged in a junkyard. Clean your clothes, help the environment and get fit at the same- or as he says (after demoing it at a festival),

"…you could say I had a laundrette running in a field in the Mendip hills, I was a stone lighter when I got back from the festival."

A stone is Brit for 14lbs.

BTW, that bike looks a bit like my beloved 1987 Bianchi Grizzly mountain bike, the only mountain bike I’ve seen with a lugged frame.

You can download the latest study of the potential effects of warming on the Great Lakes here. It details major changes in agriculture, lake levels and shipping routes, fishing and forest fires, changes inclimate, etc. None are minor. In essence those of us who live near these incredible resources will see everything we know about our regional climate change drastically.