Wavehunter

Temperatures could rise by more than 12 degrees C in some parts of the world during the next 50 years, according to UK scientists: that's if we do nothing to curb CO2 emissions. The British Environment Minister and Foreign Secretary came together to present the findings, which would mean a "high pressure" future of water and food shortages, mass migration and conflict in our children's lifetimes. Harvests of staples like maize, wheat and rice may decline 30% while the population rises 30%: a recipe for disaster.

In its MET office, the British Government has collected perhaps the world's best group of weather and climate experts. I take their forecasts seriously.

Above: David Milliband, Foreign Secretary, in front of the new interactive climate change map.

The Arctic's warming over the past century is unprecedented, according to scientists studying mud samples from beneath lakes on Canada's Baffin Island. The samples describe the island's climate over tens of thousands of years. With the Earth moving away from the sun of late, the last 8,000 years should have been getting colder - and they were, until about 1900.

I expect to see many comments from denialists at the foot of the page. Like fascists, Zionists and neocons, the dwindling number of denialists have had to become well organised in their bombardment of comment boards with half truths. They are always ready to name a handful of renegade scientists, who alone among thousands of charlatans see through the global warming hoax. Ha! Happily they won't be with us for long; we can get on with the task of rescuing civilisation much better without them.

As in Honduras, a coup in Guinea has snatched the hope of democracy away from the people. As in Honduras, Guinea's coup leaders have used violence to crack down on dissent. There have been deaths in both countries, but in Guinea 150 died last week, with men bayoneted and women raped on the streets. Neither coup could succeed without the support of the economic and political elite, who love to fly abroad to go shopping in places like Paris and Miami. In both cases, targeted sanctions could bring democracy.

Here's a petition to the European and African Unions asking for sanctions targeted against those Guineans who shop while their compatriots are abused.

Above: security forces assaulting civilians at the pro-democracy rally in Conakry, Guinea.

Naomi Klein: "Something that I hear a lot - this idea that greed or corruption is somehow an aberration from the logic of capitalism rather than the engine and the centrepiece of capitalism."

Michael Moore: "We have a number of things in our species that you would call the dark side, and greed is one of them. If you don't put certain structures in place or restrictions on those parts of our being that come from that dark place, then it gets out of control. Capitalism does the opposite of that. It not only doesn't really put any structure or restriction on it. It encourages it; it rewards it."

There's a great conversation here between two people for whom 'change' is an agenda and not just a slogan. Film-maker Michael Moore is depicted above.

Once again, Johann Hari tells it like it is.

The scientific debate on global warming is over, and has been for many years. The solution to our problems is there in sunlight, wind and waves. But big coal and big oil are funding campaigns to corrupt politicians and confuse the public. So instead of spending billions to carpet part of the Sahara in solar panels, we're spending billions on weaponry to control the oil stocks in Iraq and the oil pipelines through Afghanistan.

We have the opportunity to be the greatest generation, or the worst. When waves lap against the doors of the UN building in New York our politicians will wake up, but it will already be too late.

Hope. The sun provides 9,000 times the energy we need. Photo from Arto's blog.