By ClimateWatch Correspondent – KQED News – December 8, 2011

A new documentary attempts to find the answer. Sea level rise will irrevocably change life near the San Francisco Bay. That’s the premise of RISE: Climate Change and Coastal Communities, a documentary that starts airing this week on KQED Public Radio. Producer Claire Schoen sets the stage on a personal note.

I confess that their complaint has some validity: I can bring up the topic of climate change in pretty much any conversation.

But really, what other topic is there? 

I do care deeply about war, immigration and famine. But all of these are affected by climate change which is a major cause of increasing drought, which in turn will create more and more wars to be fought over less and less arable land, pushing greater numbers of people to become environmental migrants the world over. This is not science fiction. And it is not the future. It is happening right now and it is being meticulously measured. The scariest part is that scientific estimates and predictions of the rate and intensity of climate change continue to be proven too low. It’s all happening bigger and faster than the models have shown. And it will get worse if we don’t radically slow our greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and figure out how to adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already too late to halt.

This past year has certainly been an eye-opener in the U.S., with a record-breaking number of record-breaking weather events:

• The Mississippi and Missouri Rivers both experienced catastrophic floods this year, affecting cities and towns along both waterways. There were evacuations in Memphis. The Corps of Engineers was forced to breach levees on the Mississippi, intentionally flooding one area in order to save a more populated one.
• Chicago has experienced two intense storms classified as 100-year events – in the last three years.
• 14 states are experiencing one of the worst droughts in U.S. history. The entire state of Texas which is now in its 6th year of exceptional drought, has been designated a natural disaster area.
• Tropical storms in Vermont devastated inland towns.

Since when is Vermont located in the tropics?  For the full story, click here.