As if tornadoes aren't enough, USA Today reports that droughts are intensifying all over the U.S. -- you know, the sort of extreme weather likely to occur under continued global warming, according to the International Panel on Climate Change...
Agence France Presse details a new published study showing that the Pacific Ocean has risen eight inches in two centuries, with the rate of sea level rise surging higher and faster beginning in the 1880s, and an unusual spike in the 1990s that seems likely due to melting Arctic ice from human-driven climate change.
Inside Climate News details a new Pew study showing that while the U.S. leads in clean energy investment, China leads in clean energy job creation... ouch. Apparently, China's clean energy goals (the U.S. lacks these) are making a difference.
The UK Guardian reports that Lloyd's of London, the biggest global insurer, is urging Arctic energy investors to slow down and first do the preliminary research on environmental impacts and needed safety measures, before countries find themselve footing costly cleanup bills created by corporate-driven environmental disasters there.
New Scientist details a 2010 published study showing that phytoplankton, the staff of sealife upon which much of humanity depends, has plummeted about 40% globally since the 1940s... declining phytoplankton is predicted to occur under climate change, because warmer surface waters prevent the upwelling of cold nutrient-rich water needed to feed the little fellers.
Even among environmental concerns, global warming has dropped to the bottom of the list according to a recent Gallup poll.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/153875/Worry-Water-Air-Pollution-Historical-Lows.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_opinion_by_country
Despite the sizeable proportion that understand this threat is human driven, more education is needed.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/117772/Awareness-Opinions-Global-Warming-Vary-Worldwide.aspx
Given this poll, one would have to be in pretty deep denial of climate change to believe that the IPCC, a collection of thousands of the world's most reputable scientists doing climate change research, is "crying wolf" or that a sizeable proportion of the public, who understand that climate change is happening, is "tired" of its reporting.
How much we worry will not change the facts of global warming. Some past IPCC predictions have been overtaken by reality (eg, ice melt rate). So the public must be kept informed that climate change and global warming is a continuing, accelerating, and will harm our children's future if we do not address its causes realistically.
Your reference illustrates how much meaningful communication is needed to make people understand that a quick transition to clean energy must be a top voting priority. Only by voting into Congress and the presidency those who recognize this need will our nation begin to meaningfully address this problem.
I am a professional realist. I deal with the idiosyncrasies of nature every day. I have no problem at all, in a proper forum, discussing the science of climate change. In my opinion the approach taken by the alarmists was really bad tactics. They should have touted the science of their argument, rather than the politics. In the end, science works. Its results become more clear. In this case, because of the political agendas, the science has gotten clouded. And that has not been good for science. I expect ultimately it will not be good for the politics either.
Now here's a sensible proposition!