Heat waves threaten cities, drought lays waste to southwest farmland: too late for a sustainable agenda?

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change climate scientists convened recently and pronounced the world environmental situation grim. Declining rainfall in the Midwest threatens to shrink the Great Lakes, while scorching temperatures in Sacramento may make the city uninhabitable 100 days out of the year. "With severe drought from California to Oklahoma, a broad swath of the south-west is basically robbed of having a sustainable lifestyle," said Christopher Field, of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Congress now faces the facts that catastrophic changes may be just around the corner, worse than predicted as recently as 2007. The IPCC convention emphasized the dire need for momentum in energy reform. Full story: the Guardian