The next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is due at the end of March, and according to the Associated Press, we shouldn't expect good news. The AP summarized a draft version of the IPCC's “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability” report, and they boiled it down to the fact that we are not prepared. The AP said that the report warned that “starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war, and disease [are] likely to worsen as the world warms from man-made climate change.”

Chris Field, a co-chair of the working group drafting the IPCC report, said that we are simply not ready for the extreme weather we will experience. He said, “I think if you look around the world at the damages that have been sustained in a wide range of climate-related events, it's very clear [that] we're not prepared for the kinds of events we're already seeing.” In other words, we are not even ready for the extreme droughts, floods, and super storms that are already occurring, and we're not doing enough to prepare for the fact that these events will only get worse.

The last report from the IPCC warned that our window for impacting climate change is rapidly closing, but it has not shut yet. Our world must prepare for the extreme events of today and of the future. And, we have to act fast, and fight hard, to prevent our planet from getting even hotter.