The sad truth is that denying climate change won’t prevent it from happening. In fact, a new study published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature shows that the planet is approaching a dangerous climate tipping point, and our destructive habits are pushing it toward the edge.

Throughout the eons the Earth has gone through several drastic biological changes, many of which wiped out thousands of then-living species in traumatic mass extinctions. ”Humans are now forcing another such transition, with the potential to transform Earth rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience,” wrote the study’s international panel of authors.

The researchers say a combination of variables are forcing the planet toward irreversible biological changes, including exploding global population, rapidly rising temperatures and the clearance of more than 40 percent of Earth’s surface for urban development or agriculture. They also warn that ignoring these changes, and our role in fast-tracking them, is a dangerous gamble.

“The net effects of what we’re causing could actually be equivalent to an asteroid striking the Earth in a worst-case scenario,” the paper’s lead author, Anthony Barnosky, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley, said in an interview with the LA Times. “I don’t want to sound like Armageddon. I think the point to be made is that if we just ignore all the warning signs of how we’re changing the Earth, the scenario of losses of biodiversity — 75% or more — is not an outlandish scenario at all.”

No, the Earth isn’t going to suddenly implode because there are too many SUVs or because you leave the air conditioning running when you’re not home. But if deforestation, population growth, and consumption of fossil fuels continues at the current pace, our children will be left with “a biologically impoverished Earth that would rob humans of vital ecological services such as insects that pollinate crops, forests that provide clean water, and tropical species that are the source of new drugs.”

Yet again, scientists are echoing what environmentalists have been saying for decades: even if we can’t agree on what’s causing climate change, we must acknowledge that IT IS happening and WE ARE making it worse. Doing so will allow us to prepare for what’s ahead, and minimize the negative impact on society. Refusing to acknowledge that our actions have consequences only guarantees that they will be swift and severe.

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If the Syrians agree [about President Assad's departure] between each other, we will only be happy to support such a solution.

Lavrov’s statement was made after another week of violence in Syria. Activists report that, just today, Saturday, the Syrian army killed 17 people in the southern city of Deraa, where the uprising started in March of 2011 after some teenagers were arrested for writing anti-regime graffiti on a building. The BBC’s Jim Muir, reporting from Lebanon, noted that “despite frequent attempts to subdue Deraa, the city has never really been completely tamed by government forces” and that members of the rebel Free Syrian Army are active in and around it.

Residents of the capital of Damascus described shootings and explosions, with regime tanks in the city’s streets shelling buildings for the first time. However, BBC correspondent Paul Danahar said he did not see evidence of street battles after visiting one of the sites.

Danahar visited the village of Qubeir, where reports of a massacre as savage as that previously discovered in the town of Houla have been confirmed. United Nations monitors had at first been barred by the Syrian army from entering Qubeir and reported being shot at. Activists say that at least 80 were killed in Qubeir; UN monitors are still determining the number. Danahar described the smell of burned flesh in the air:

Men walked into this village on Wednesday morning with the intention of killing everything that moved. But butchering the families that lived in this tiny Sunni Muslim community was not enough to quench their bloodlust. So the animals died too, their carcasses left to rot in the summer sun.

If this was an act of mindless violence the fact that the bodies of the people had been removed suggested a very clear-headed attempt to hide the truth.

Condemning the killings, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke of Syria being on the very brink of civil war while UN envoy Kofi Annan stated what has been too long apparent, that his six-point peace plan has not been implemented.

The te Syrian National Council (SNC), the main coalition of Syria’s opposition groups, is to elect a new president in Turkey on Saturday, after its Paris-based president, Burhan Ghalioun, resigned. The group has not been able to shake off dissension during the months of the uprising, which has taken over 10,000 lives. If Assad were to step down, no clear successor has yet emerged.

Previous Care2 Coverage

Syria Blocks UN Monitors From “Massacre” Investigation

Syria Expels Diplomats; Assad Denies Houla Massacre

Unrest in Syria Spreading to Lebanon