EOTWAWKI

- from April 21, 1990, this is a photo of the last eruption by Redoubt Volcano. Photograph by R. Clucas. Courtesy of the Alaska Volcano Observatory website. Not related to my post, really, but nice photo :)

When I was a kid, I was always worrying about the end of the world as we knew it - I read post-apocalyptic novels (The Stand, Lucifer's Hammer, The Postman), saw the movies (On the Beach, The Omega Man, A Boy and his Dog). Those scenarios for the end of the world posited causal events as diverse as asteroid strikes, deadly contagions and global thermal nuclear war, but none of them foresaw a civilization doomed by cow flatulence and leaky refrigerant. Still, doomed is doomed, and I'm getting pretty depressed about it. I know some of you guys see global warming as nature's way, but even if our radical climate change isn't mostly due to the effects of man (and I think it is), the suffering of Earth's present inhabitants is going to be pretty awful. Here's the latest story I saw on the subject .... Global warming 'irreversible' for next 1000 years: study

And there's a thoughtful post on climate change at America magazine's blog - Global Warming 101