Is this a "death train", a la James Hansen, or just an ordinary train? What steps have been taken to mitigate its carbon emissions? Is some poor old granny in India using a hand sewing machine instead of an electric one so the train company can boast about being 'carbon neutral'? Are the first class passengers on the train going to suffer one tiny shred of personal inconvenience as they debate merrily about limiting personal freedoms and slashing their constituents' wealth by thousands of dollars every year? In these days of the Internet, can they really find no better way to communicate than to fly thousands of people halfway around the world?

No, of course not. Silly me! Sorry I asked.

Unfortunately the following are real developments:

1. The drying Murray-Darling
2. The drought-stricken southwest and southeast Australia and related bushfires.
3. The warming acidifying Great Barrier reef
4. Intensification of tropical hurricanes
5. The increase in biodiversity loss
6. The fast melting ice sheets, now including East Antarctica, as below:

East Antarctic sheet shedding 57bn tonnes of ice a year and contributing to sea level rises, according to Nasa aerial survey
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/22/east-antarctic-ice-sheet-nasa

The world's largest ice sheet has started to melt along its coastal fringes, raising fears that global sea levels will rise faster than scientists expected.

The East Antarctic ice sheet, which makes up three-quarters of the continent's 14,000 sq km, is losing around 57bn tonnes of ice a year into surrounding waters, according to a satellite survey of the region.

Scientists had thought the ice sheet was reasonably stable, but measurements taken from Nasa's gravity recovery and climate experiment (Grace) show that it started to lose ice steadily from 2006.

The measurements suggest the polar continent could soon contribute more to global sea level rises than Greenland, which is shedding more than 250bn tonnes of ice a year, adding 0.7mm to annual sea level rises.

Satellite data from the whole of Antarctica show the region is now losing around 190bn tonnes of ice a year. Uncertainties in the measurements mean the true ice loss could be between 113bn and 267bn tonnes.

"If the current trend continues or gets worse, Antarctica could become the largest contributor to sea level rises in the world. It could start to lose more ice than Greenland within a few years," said Jianli Chen, of the University of Texas at Austin.

Chen's team used data from the Nasa mission to see how Earth's gravitational pull varied month to month between April 2002 and January 2009. Measurements taken over the south pole reflect changes in the mass of the Antarctic ice sheets.

The survey confirmed the West Antarctic ice sheet is melting rapidly with the loss of around 132bn tonnes of ice a year, but revealed unexpected melting in the larger East Antarctic ice sheet.

Andy1, before you get your knickers in too much of a knot over the East Antarctic ice sheet, you might also mention the part of that report where the authors cautioned that the margin of error was %90, which meant that the figures could well mean nothing.

And tropical hurricanes are not intensifying, no matter what Al Gore says.

The drying Murray-Darling has more to do with mismanagement of water resources than the big, scary climate change monster.

A nice cup of tea and a good lie down is in order, I think.

Runner I wholly agree with your summation.

Reducing emission of any kind, whilst possible (yet arguably) desirable for health reasons,

are not guaranteed to arrest or slow or influence any other postulated “global change”

what these “environmentalists” want to do is enslave us to their model of human activity, without knowing if any benefit will be forthcoming.

It is all just

Socialism by Stealth

The left wing, having lost the economic argument and the cold war, are simply harnessing the emotions and fears of global warming aided and abetted by scientists chasing soft research grants, to bring everyone into line with their previously failed political ideology

“We are simply talking about the very life support system of this planet”, Professor Joachim Schellnhuber, Director, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact, and chief climate science advisor of the German Government.

“The pace and scale of climate change may now be outstripping even the most sobering previous predictions”, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).

“The time for hesitation is over”, United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.

“The clock is ticking for the planet”, Kevin Rudd.

"The sky is falling in", Chicken Little

I added the last quote as this appears to be a contest to see who can say the silliest thing.

The ozone hole scam and the Y2K scam made a few people very rich and now? What was it is it again Kevin? Global warming, AGW and now climate change.
Mr. Glikson has a very vested interest in getting money for whatever he does. Good luck matey I do not believe a word of this fluff and will vote against it all.

The fact that the ice caps are melting at such an alarming rate would beg the question what about the gas trapped in the ice. That as a temperature decreases the solubility of a gas increases ‘, i.e. the direct opposite of a 'normal' solvent solute reaction. This means that the trapped co2 / methane, that already exists in the ice is being released at a rate I have yet to see any figures on.
This added to what our normal pollution levels as far a carbon emission is concerned, lead me to wonder what is being realistically done in the world to curb this effect.
Next the ‘Normal’ effect of pollutants in the atmosphere due to active volcanoes does appear to be allowed for in this so-called study on greenhouse emission.
Next the methane production seems to be out of control especially in Kyoto a well Copenhagen.
Next the carbon foot prints levels seem to underestimate the fact that here are 4 carbon atoms in every molecule in methane compared to 1 in co2.
No wonder he worlds in trouble!