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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Ah, it doesn't really matter. Most of us are likely out of here soon  
and those few left will be scrambling to stay alive. Certainly not  
much interested in whether the relatives took care of getting that  
family trust recorded.

The World at 350
A Last Chance for Civilization
By Bill McKibben

Even for Americans, constitutionally convinced that there will always  
be a second act, and a third, and a do-over after that, and, if  
necessary, a little public repentance and forgiveness and a Brand New  
Start -- even for us, the world looks a little Terminal right now.

It's not just the economy. We've gone through swoons before. It's that  
gas at $4 a gallon means we're running out, at least of thecheap stuff  
that built our sprawling society. It's that when we try to turn corn  
into gas, it sends the price of a loaf of bread shooting upwards and  
starts food riots on three continents. It's that everything is so  
inextricably tied together. It's that, all of a sudden, those grim  
Club of Rome types who, way back in the 1970s, went on and on about  
the "limits to growth" suddenly seem… how best to put it, right.

All of a sudden it isn't morning in America, it's dusk on planet Earth.

There's a number -- a new number -- that makes this point most  
powerfully. It may now be the most important number on Earth: 350. As  
in parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

A few weeks ago, our foremost climatologist, NASA's Jim Hansen,  
submitted a paper to Science magazine with several co-authors. The  
abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger  
language in a scientific paper -- "if humanity wishes to preserve a  
planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which  
life on earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate  
change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385  
ppm to at most 350 ppm." Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points  
-- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among  
them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the  
first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may  
already be behind us.

The rest of the article is at:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174930/bill_mckibben_the_defining_moment_for_climate_change