Six degrees of warming - Our Environmental Challenge

Given New Zealand’s recent score card on the environment it is timely to recognise just how important it is for us to understand the ramifications of climate change as it plays out in the Northern hemisphere and how it will affect our trade, our energy supplies, our lifestyle and our planet as a whole.

The balance is subtle but constantly shifting. The political rhetoric in trying to maintain a business as usual mentality in face of such change needs to be tempered with a reality that we here in New Zealand and the Southern Hemisphere are not experiencing as rapidly as others.

None of us, not even the scientists studying it know when the tipping point in warming will be - a point which will result in a massive acceleration of warming – it may not be centuries but a matter of decades, it may be within the lifetime of your children.

each clip is aprox 3 min long

2 Degrees Warmer: Ocean Life in Danger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-0_gDXqYeQ&NR=1

3 Degrees Warmer: Heat Wave Fatalities

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rdLu7wiZOE&feature=user

4 Degrees Warmer: Great Cities Wash Away

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skFrR3g4BRQ&feature=user

5 Degrees Warmer: Civilization Collapses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nRf2RTqANg&feature=user

6 Degrees Warmer: Mass Extinction?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qmaAMK4cM&feature=user