I was just out in Southern California. It was full moon and at high tide with small surf the waves were eating away at the cliffs. If it had been high surf it would have been much worse. This did not use to happen.

I know we're preaching to the choir here, but we all have moronic friends who continue to stick their heads in the sand. During the 9 inch blizzard in Nashville (not much for up north but a big deal down here) a cable network was playing "Day After Tomorrow"--how politicians dithered and denied until an irreversible global catastrophe hit. The exposition at the beginning explains how global warming can trigger another ice age. I would say it was prophetic (2004) but it and the novel it was based on were based on scientific fact known for decades.

The point is, when you melt the polar ice caps, all that water has to go somewhere--and if the temperature is below 32 degrees it comes down as snow. Hurrican Sandy flooded NYC subways--an event unprecedented in my lifetime. In 2010 Nashville experienced a deluge that was almost totally ignored by national media. The Corps of Engineers, which works out flood plains for all inland river systems, gave up when flood levels exceeded the thousand year flood plain. It probably reached the 5,000 year flood plain or more. On the major networks, the "news" of the week was some manufactured drama by the Kardashians and other trivial fluff pieces. How many "freakish" storms have to hit before people realize that something major is happening to the world climate?

When melted fresh water from the arctic hits the gulf stream, even lowering the mean temperature by a few degrees can set off an irreversible global cooling, leading to another ice age. So yes, global warming can set off a new Ice Age!

I guess some congressmen can just look out their window and make a judgment about global warming. This seems to be how their science works. Cracking jokes and throwing snow balls. Soooo, we need to make our case for global warming during summer. That should throw them off their game. And yes. For them, it is a game.

@Kend, 5 degrees warmer on average would not be perfect for Canada or Russia and especially China. It would be a disaster. Would likely turn large areas of central Asia and North America into a desert. Hydro power, Canada's main source of electricity would be decimated. Coastal cities would be flooded. Large areas of permafrost turned into swamp. Vast migrations of poverty stricken southerners would invade northern countries creating massive social chaos. The only way to stop that would be genocide, mass extermination.

It is true $trillions have been thrown down the sewer on nutty scams ostensibly to avert global warming, but that is all due to the total corruption of our governments.

It would save $trillions in energy costs to replace fossil fuels with nuclear energy. And 100's of $trillions in climate change costs. But the fossil fuel vested interests cannot allow that. So they promote these wacky wind, solar, ethanol, hydrogen, carbon capture, wave & tidal scams to divert capital, manpower & resources away from effective solutions. And greenwash their dirty energy products. And give their bought-and-paid-for politicians opportunity to pretend they are doing something when in fact they are doing nothing, even less than nothing.

Yes runoff your right. 5 is too much. How about 2 degrees. Lol. Natural gas for cars is the way we should have went. It would have had a instant impact but. You could also stop the whole global warming debate by calling this what it is. Pollution. No one would argue that. Al Gore and many others wouldn't have made billions though.