Dr Hansen says that the “Elements of a `perfect storm’, a global cataclysm, are assembled”.

While we have have already committed to 1.7 Degree Celcius increase in pre-industrial temperature levels, we are talking of keeping temperatures below 2 Deg C. Dr Hansen considers this as a stunning corollary and says “The oft-stated goal to keep global warming less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is a recipe for global disaster, not salvation. Global warming of two to three degrees, he warns, would produce a planet without Arctic sea ice, a catastrophic sea level rise in the pipeline of around 25 meters, and superdrought around the globe. “

Al Gore says “We have a planetary emergency and we have to find a way to create in the generation alive today a sense of generational mission”

What happens in the Arctic will effect us ALL

Dr Jay Zwally, glaciologist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center says after the 2007 Arctic Ice melt “The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming, the canary has died.”.

The appalling rate at which the arctic is melting - in the words of paleoclimatologist Richard Alley -”100 years ahead of schedule” - marks the beginning of the end, of life on earth as we know it.

Dr Hansen says - “Yet the urgency of the situation is not readily apparent to everybody. Urgency is created by the very inertia of the climate system that delays the effects of gases already added to the air.”