Climate change: Cliff, you wrote: "Another assumption in that report is that current trends will continue. Maybe they will and maybe they won't."
Well, the North Pole is melting away to liquid earlier and earlier, badly messing with the jet stream, which has wrought havoc in recent years (like this year!) with hot/cold temps in US and Europe (and likely elsewhere)....
And ANTARCTICA IS MELTING AWAY. That's undeniable and irreversible in our lifetimes and our grandchildren's lifetimes. So, maybe some current pattern-trends in weather may "reverse" down the road, but if the sea levels are 10 or 50 feet higher, the world's heavily populated coastal areas will all be underwater.
And stock markets will be decimated by that.....
Civilization as we know it will never be the same.
