World Wildlife Fund

An animated map from the U.S. Geological Survey shows the daily locations of tagged walruses and sea ice distribution in the Chuckchi sea.  As the extent of Arctic sea ice again declines to one of the lowest levels on record -- especially off the coast of Alaska --  watch the walruses congregate on the remaining ice and increasingly in "haul outs" along the Alaska shoreline.

Opponents of clean energy and climate change legislation often highlight the price tag for limiting fossil fuel pollution, calling the cost too great. However, the costs of reducing emissions will be dwarfed by the expense of coping with the mounting impacts of climate change. The Pakistan flooding exemplifies the high costs of extreme weather events that are becoming more frequent and/or severe.

Financial expert Dr. Robert Litterman says "the Senate has decided to say to the entire world, on behalf of the American public: `We are going to ignore the risks of a climate disaster.'"  In the final months of this Congressional session, he says "the Senate must find a way to deal with the reality of this situation and pass a strong climate bill."

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO₂) have been higher in the distant past. Citing those periods, some argue that much higher carbon concentrations pose no serious threat and may even be beneficial.    In his latest video, Peter Sinclair reviews the paleoclimatic evidence and shows that the conditions associated with extremely high CO₂ levels were hardly hospitable.  They were catastrophic and led to mass extinctions.

In two recent videos from Peter Sinclair, intelligence and military experts discuss the security threat of a changing climate. The recent floods in Pakistan reinforce the concerns voiced in the videos.

Since plants use carbon dioxide (CO₂) during photosynthesis, isn't more CO₂ better for plants?  Peter Sinclair terms that notion "one of the hardy perennials of climate denialism," and tackles it in the latest of his series of "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" videos on Monday (16 August 2010).  Just four days later, scientists today (20 August) report in the journal Science that global plant productivity on land declined over the last decade because of a drying trend in the Southern Hemisphere and large-scale regional droughts in both hemispheres.  

"Let the clean economy begin," says this video from the partners of WWF's Climate Savers program.  "It' not a business mandate, it's a business opportunity."

"What is happening in Pakistan cannot be described in a single word – like disaster or catastrophe," says Professor Richard Rood of the University of Michigan's Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. "We are watching a combination of climate, weather, population, societal capacity, and geopolitics whose scope and ramifications are far beyond a `historic flood.'"

In what she modestly calls a "doodle," talented writer and illustrator Karen Romano Young captures the plight of the Pacific Walrus as it faces a decline in vital Arctic sea ice.  "The walrus, some say, could be as much a poster child for the effects of climate change as its compatriot, the polar bear," says Young.

"[T]oday’s conditions in the Northwest Passage would likely astonish 19th century explorers," reports the National Snow and Ice Data Center.  Overall, the center reports that as Arctic sea ice approaches its September minimum, sea ice extent is 649,000 square miles below average.