Climate change protest this Thursday

There's a climate change protest in Coventry this Thursday lunchtime, led by NASA scientist James Hansen, and organised by Christian Aid. It is partly protesting against the proposed new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth. Hansen's participation is a notable example of the new stridency and political activism among climate change scientists:

Prof Kevin Anderson, the research director at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Manchester, said: "Scientists have lost patience with carefully constructed messages being lost in the political noise. We are now prepared to stand up and say enough is enough."

Only 50% chance of avoiding more than 2 degree warming

The Copenhagen summit held preliminary meetings today, before the big event kicks off in December when the world will decide what kind of global regulation, if any, it will introduce to curb carbon emissions and prevent further global warming.

Up til now, the hope has been that we could limit global warming to 2 degrees celsius, which would make life uncomfortable, but not impossible, for most of the world's population.

Now, the Met Office says there is only a 50% chance we could limit global warming to 2 degrees, and only if we cut emissions drastically in the next 10 years.

At the moment, carbon emissions are going up by around 3% a year.

If the world warms up by more than 2 degrees, the New Scientist predicts that most of the world will become uninhabitable.

If we don't act now, our children will have a severely depleted quality of life.

This is the challenge of our life time, and we have to act, individually and collectively, to meet it.