<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/08575afe-6174-414a-8b6b-7ae372ec64c3/D54D0229-D150-48FB-AEFF-70041770943A/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008107.html" href="http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008107.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.worldchanging.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008107.html"><P>Scientists like to low-ball their estimates. The now-famous IPCC scenarios for the effects of climate change are already known to be woefully, unrealistically conservative (Freeman Dyson's <A href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21494" target="new" linkindex="12" set="yes">recent comments</A> <A href="http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/freeman-dysons-selective-vision/" target="new" linkindex="13">notwithstanding</A>). Arctic changes expected 20 years from now are happening now, and in North America the beginning of spring has already been pushed back by two weeks, which is enough to play havoc with the fertility cycle of many migratory birds (among other consequences). The worst-case scenarios used in public debate ignore some extremely worrisome factors, such as the possible release of oceanic methane from <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis" target="new" linkindex="14">clathrates</A>. If we're going to deal with this problem, we have to do it now, as in, within the term of your next government.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008107.html">The ultimate in technological optimism is the idea of the <A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity" linkindex="15" set="yes">technological singularity</A>, which posits that technological advance is exponential and, driven by progress in artificial intelligence, will <A href="http://www.worldchanging.com/archives//001065.html" target="new" linkindex="16" set="yes">soon hit the vertical slope of the curve</A>.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/D54D0229-D150-48FB-AEFF-70041770943A/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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