With the Copenhagen summit on climate change less than three months away, and governments the world over engaged in intensive discussions and preparations, it feels like we are finally standing at a true crossroads.

One direction leads to a vision of a sustainable future, with adequate energy, food, and water for all without compromising the welfare of future generations.

The other direction is a continuation of the path we're currently on, which the vast preponderance of empirical evidence says is not sustainable, but which continues to be vigorously defended by vested interests.

Human society is already, in small but significant ways, being shaped by global warming. So said a climatologist at the climate change congress in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Thursday.

Jean Palutikof of the University of East Anglia, UK, pointed to numerous studies warning that climate change is going to deeply transform our society, by increasing the death rate, for example, or changing the way we grow food. If you look in the right places, says Palutikof, it is already possible to see our behaviour changing.

Models and observations tell us which parts of the planet are most likely to feel the heat of climate change – so these "hotspots" are a good place to start looking for such changes. Palutikof focused on two locations: the maize fields of the US Midwest, and south-east Australia. Read on

THE global sea level is rising faster than predicted, scientists warned yesterday.

Instead of a rise of between 18 and 59 centimetres by 2100, as forecast in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, seas could rise up to a metre or more.

The warning came from international experts attending a three-day conference in Copenhagen on climate research, called to underpin the world's response to climate change.

Speaking from the meeting, CSIRO scientist John Church, a Hobart-based oceans and climate change expert, told The Australian: "It's important to clearly understand sea level rise when deciding on our response to climate change." Read on

In two must-read articles, the uber-sober Economist magazine slams “clean coal” — aka carbon capture and storage (CCS), or carbon sequestration — as an “illusion,” and an expensive and potentially dangerous one at that.

In an editorial, the Economist points out:

• Tonne for tonne, CCS looks like an expensive way of cutting carbon. The cost of it may fall, but probably not by much, given the familiarity of the technologies it uses.
• CCS is not just a potential waste of money. It might also create a false sense of security about climate change, while depriving potentially cheaper methods of cutting emissions of cash and attention–all for the sake of placating the coal lobby.

This is seriously bad news for Western Australia, as we have huge reserves of coal.