Scientists at the Planet Under Pressure conference have some bad news for the environmental movement. Anyone paying attention could tell you that global warming is out of control. Temperatures are already set to rise by at least 2 degrees Celsius in the next century – and there may be nothing we can do to change it at this point.

But if we continue to pollute the Earth without taking drastic measures to change our emissions, the global temperature could rise by as much as six degrees. It may not seem like a huge difference, but it’s significant enough to profoundly alter the Earth as we know it. Sea levels will rise. The polar ice sheets will disappear. Rainforests will die. There won’t be any coming back from these changes.

These shifts in the climate of the Earth represent tipping points – and some scientists say that the tipping point for the melting ice sheets has already passed. There may be no way to recover them. In low-lying countries like Tuvalu or Kiribati, citizens are already making plans to evacuate as rising sea levels gradually swallow up their island homes.

But if the Amazon rainforest reaches a tipping point caused by higher temperatures and a drier climate, it could be devastating. The dying trees would stop absorbing emissions and instead release even more carbon into the atmosphere.

And nobody knows what will happen if the permafrost begins to melt in Siberia. The frozen soil stores billions of tons of carbon – twice as much as the atmosphere now. Severe temperature changes could unlock all that carbon, intensifying climate change dramatically. In an interview with Reuters, Will Steffen, the executive director of the Australian National University’s climate change institute, explained:

“There is about 1,600 billion tonnes of carbon there – about twice the amount in the atmosphere today – and the northern high latitudes are experiencing the most severe temperature change of any part of the planet,” he said.

In a worst case scenario, 30 to 63 billion tonnes of carbon a year could be released by 2040, rising to 232 to 380 billion tonnes by 2100. This compares to around 10 billion tonnes of CO2 released by fossil fuel use each year.

These changes in the atmosphere also make the oceans more acidic, as the water absorbs more carbon. We’re already witnessing an increase in ocean acidity. This change in the ocean threatens coral reefs could quickly lead to the extinction of many marine species within the next few decades.

Bob Watson, the former head of the UN’s climate panel and current chief advisor to Britian’s environment ministry, is not optimistic. Given current worldwide commitments to combatting climate change, he believes it’s entirely likely that global temperatures will rise by 5 degrees Celsius (9 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century:

“If you look at the commitments today from governments around the world, we’ve only got a 50-50 shot at a 3 C (5.4 F) world, almost no chance of a 2 C (3.6 F) world, and to be quite honest I would say it’s not unlikely that we will hit a 5 C (9.0 F) world,” said Watson.

“That is clearly a world with significant adverse consequences for ecological systems, for socio-economic systems and for human health.”

He added: “We have to realise that we are looking at a loss of biodiversity that is unprecedented in the last 65 million years… We are clearly entering the (planet’s) sixth mass extinction.”

It’s important to note that despite these dire predictions, not all scientists are completely pessimistic. Steffan told an audience in London on Tuesday, “This is the critical decade.” While the implications are terrifying – if we don’t reduce global greenhouse gas emissions significantly in the next decade, the results could be catastrophic – there’s also the possibility that things can be turned around, or the damage at least limited. But we have to act quickly.

The good news is that we have at least the next ten years before the worst of global climate change becomes completely irreversible. If we plan for the worst, that’s a full decade to lobby our lawmakers and insist upon change. As more severe weather begins to occur as a result of climate change, maybe more US lawmakers will start being willing to concede it exists and take action to stop it. (Well, we can hope, can’t we?)

350.org is placing their efforts on that hope this year – for their global day of action on May 5, they’re urging protestors to “connect the dots” between carbon emissions, global warming, and extreme weather. You can find out more about the event and how you can participate on their website, ClimateDots.org.

Related Stories:

Nation of Kiribati Relocating Due to Rising Sea Levels

French Biochemist Designs Algae-Powered, CO2-Absorbing Lamp

Lego Owners Support Wind Power

Our planet is an amazing place, and the wildlife that has evolved to be able to survive in the cold wastelands that are its poles, are equally astounding. Even though these animals live, breed, and die far from our collective consciousness, their fate is intertwined with our own.

Harp seals are just one of these fascinating and resilient species. Unfortunately, global warming and arctic oil drilling aren’t the only life-threatening challenges faced by these playful creatures. Once a year, Canadian hunters are unleashed into the seals’ habitat, with permission to slaughter tens of thousands of these innocent animals.

Care2′s Sharon Seltzer reports that “despite the EU ban on seal products in 2009 and public outcry from around the globe Canada’s government is still trying to convince people that their barbaric and inhumane hunt is necessary, all while spending tax-payer dollars on diligently trying to find new markets for seal products, rather than working to transition the few thousand sealers into a more stable industry.”

As the following infographic explains, this slaughter is brutal and completely unnecessary. Scroll down to get the real story about what is gained from Canada’s annual commercial seal hunt, and then sign the petition to help stop this shocking practice.

Related Reading:

U.S. Olympian Bashes The Canadian Seal Slaughter

Victory! Russia Bans Harp Seal Imports

Witnesses Report One Of The Cruelest Seal Hunts Yet

Infographic used with permission from HSUS

In 2011, Republicans were in an uproar over an ad that compared Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan to “throwing grandma over a cliff.” Now, in 2012, Ryan and his colleagues in the House are introducing a budget that is nearly identical to the one panned in 2011 — one that will cut Medicare, Social Security and other social safety net programs in order to extend tax breaks to the richest Americans and to corporations.

The Republican party is no longer trying to throw Grandma off a cliff. That would be much quicker. Instead, they are trying to freeze, starve and neglect her until she dies. And sadly, it appears to be working.

The latest figures out from a Wider Opportunities for Women study shows that 60 percent of elderly women are unable to pay for basic living expenses. As WomenENews reports, the average elderly woman is living on less than $15,000 a year, about half of what an elderly man is living on. “Using the Elder Economic Security Standard Index, which defines the basic expenses facing retired adults over the age of 65, the organization’s researchers found that an older adult required from $19,100 to $29,000 a year, depending on the individual’s housing situation. Forty-nine percent of white women and 61 percent of older Asian women were unable to meet their monthly expenses for housing, food, health care and other necessities. Three out of four African-American and Hispanic women had insufficient funds.”

There are a number of reasons why elderly women are fairing so badly. Because they tend to outlive their partners, they shoulder more living expenses alone. And due to time off in the workplace and lower pay over their careers they tend to have less in their retirement and pension accounts and receive less in Social Security. Due to their longer lives they are also subject to more health expenses that increase as they grow older, and lose more wealth earlier on caring for sick partners.

As more elderly women fall into poverty — especially minority women — it is a reminder of the increased importance of programs like Medicare and Social Security. And those are two programs that Republicans want to drastically change in order to keep providing disproportionately lower taxes to the wealthy.

It would be kinder just to throw grandma off the cliff than starve her to death.

The killings, says the New York Times, “seemed to dim even the glimmer of hope that the government might reconcile with the opposition” and show how some members of the opposition have increasingly taken to insurgency tactics. Roadside bomb attacks have also increased, with the Syrian state news agency saying that engineers had taken apart a “’a large number’ of bombs made of gas cans and fire extinguishers” on the roads in Idlib province.

Activists Skeptical About Assad’s Promises to Implement Peace Plan

President Bashar al-Assad had said in a statement on Thursday that until what he called “terrorists” have ceased to attack officials and damage pipelines and other aspects of the country’s infrastructure, he would not carry out a six-point peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan, special envoy from the United Nations and the Arab League. Assad had indicated earlier that he would “spare no effort” to carry out the peace plan. The plan calls for arbitrarily detained prisoners to be released, for daily cease-fires to allow for humanitarian aid and access for journalists.

Activists contend that Assad is simply biding his time as he has throughout the past year, promising reforms but finding reasons to stall implementing them. Speaking at a news conference in Istanbul, Walid Banani, a member of the Syrian National Council, points out that, for all the regime has pretended it agreed to the plan there “are more killings, mass murders and no withdrawal of forces from streets.”

One activist quoted by the Guardian says the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is still only lightly armed. Malik al-Abdeh, a London-based supporter of the Syrian National Council, says that members of the FSA are “organised locally and armed with nothing more sophisticated than AK-47 assault rifles, RPGs, and PK machine guns.” Syrian activists also report that a Kalashnikov rifle smuggled in from Lebanon now costs $2,000 vs. $300 before the crisis, suggesting that arms are not readily available.

Diplomatic Efforts to End Conflict in Syria Continue

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Saudi Arabia on Friday to meet with King Abdullah to urge him to support international diplomatic efforts to end the crisis in Syria. Along with Qatar, Saudi Arabia has indicated interest in arming the opposition fighters; Assad has said that he will not proceed with the peace plan until other countries agree not to finance the armed opposition. Indeed, Iranian state media reported on Friday that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, had told the visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Iran “is vehemently opposed to any intervention by foreign forces in Syrian internal affairs.”

Annan will likely visit Tehran soon, a sign that of the influence of Iran — Syria’s most powerful ally — on the situation.

On Sunday, Clinton, British foreign minister William Hague and numerous other western and Arab foreign ministers will be in Istanbul to attend a meeting of the Friends of Syria, to continue planning action against Assad’s regime and discuss Annan’s plan to end a conflict in which at least 9,000 have died.

Previous Care2 Coverage

Syrian Uprising “Bloodiest” of the Arab Spring

EU Imposes Travel Ban, Assets Freeze on Syrian First Lady

Natalie Portman, Patrick Stewart and Susan Sarandon Unite for Syria