We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks - water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land - and not by generating renewable flows.

If our government won't spend the money to protect New Orleans sufficiently today, what are the chances we will spend the money to protect dozens of coastal cities post-2050, once everyone knows that sea levels will keep rising and intense hurricanes will occur relentlessly?

The world beyond 450 ppm atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the world that crosses carbon cycle tipping points that quickly take us to 1000 ppm, is a world not merely of endless regional resource wars around the globe. It is a world with dozens of Darfurs. It is a world of a hundred Katrinas, of countless environmental refugees

If the politics of inaction and delay that have triumphed in this country continues for another decade, then Planetary Purgatory in the likely future facing our country before midcentury - probably in your own lifetime.

Much of the scientific community has been astonished that their increasingly strong and detailed warnings have been either ignored or attacked.

The last time Earth was 1°C warmer than today, sea levels were 20 feet higher.

On our current path, all our great Gulf and Atlantic coast cities are at risk of meeting the same fate as New Orleans.