PanGeoInvestment.com     

Our Pan Geo Global Capital Appreciation Portfolio unlevered total rate of return is 64.7% from inception on November 15, 2000 to January 30, 2012 (average annual rate of return is 4.5%). Over this time, it has outperformed its global hybrid benchmark by 58.8%.

Our Pan Geo 100% American Strength Growth Portfolio unlevered total rate of return is 123.5% from inception on July 15, 2002 to January 30, 2012 (average annual rate of return is 8.7%). Over this time, it has outperformed its hybrid U.S. benchmark by 42.7%.

Our Pan Geo Global Green Opportunities ("GO") Fund unlevered total rate of return is -4.9% from inception on May 1, 2011 to January 30, 2012 (average annual rate of return is -6.5%). Over this time, it has underperformed its global benchmark by 4.9%.

The inaugural edition of this Investigation was published at this website on December 9, 2007. There have been many subsequent editions. Since summer solstice, 2009 we have had visitors to this website from at least 125 countries, as outlined in the table near the bottom of our Welcome page, and from more than 280 major cities around the world, as tabulated towards the bottom of our InvestorDataBlock page. For important information concerning our global Aqua, Chartreuse or Light Yellow Works facilities, scroll down to the section entitled Toll Scroll™ form Green Earth Memoranda & Solution ("GEMS"). Look for the subsection dated May 30, 2010.

To search PanGeoInvestment.com website for something, thanks to Dassault Systemes' Exalead search engine, this is easy to do: Enter what you are searching for at this website in the search box located near the bottom of any web page here. In the search results, you may want to select the (dated) cached web page result initially because it highlights throughout that web page the particular search term you are looking for.                        

If you seek investment advice or further information about Pan Geo Investment Inc. and its services, please click on the links below to view other pages of this website or click on Welcome, OrderAdvice or InvestorDataBlock pages. Check the marquee banners above and refer to the Performance  Page for information about the success of our investment advisory services to date and to view the first part of our 183 country Pan Geo Investment Global Table©. This table also contains direct links to stock market exchanges of these countries, so web surfing investors and interested parties can easily visit them by clicking on the links provided. The 100 countries not currently in our Pan Geo Global Index are shown in the Table portion on our Also Eligible  Page.

This Pan Geo Investment Investigation supports our independent portfolio investment advisory services. We have always been a future-oriented advisory. We consider clean, green investing to be a consequence of our forward thinking and advice in general. We come across all kinds of entities that are striving to contain and reduce environmental impacts. Ecological risks and impacts may be the limiting factor, ultimately determining what issuer "i" can and cannot do. Today, savvy businessmen are often tapping into advanced research and development for something new or more sustainable than heretofore what's been offered by many competing firms. So conducting ecological risk analysis on an ongoing basis helps us immeasurably in our green growth investing efforts here at Pan Geo Investment. Being able to cut the mustard in the green movement these days requires tremendous discipline, scientific knowledge, research and development plus technology application and transfer moxie like never before. Moreover, the ecological footprint of our operations is a tiny fraction that of the lion's share of competitors.

Hire a blue, green or yellow advisor and bid adieu to the red, purple and gray ones! Green advisors including us try very hard not to be cynical because we do not want attitudinal factors getting in the way of potential solutions to our ecological survivability crisis. But we are going to sneak in the observation that modern bankers are generally way too slow and reactive with their investment portfolios. They tend to back projects and companies in the same way a momentum investor tries to make money on the stock market: By putting more and more and yet-more funds into the same thing until something finally goes ka-boom! To use racetrack parlance, they run with "blinkers-on" trying to stay in good position in the race from one quarter pole to the next. Deemphasize those quarterly results and let's help build some high quality companies that outperform in the long run. Because this Earth will be rotating on its axis and revolving around that sun up there for a very, very long time yet with us or without us! 

We believe it's vital we have mandates worldwide for clean, green, renewable sources of energy. This realization is widely-accepted already.  What you hear far less if anything about is a parallel requirement to mandate capital flow to bonafide clean, green funds and advisors. Cheap money has to be diverted from conventional banks and bank advisors in the comfortable, easy business-as-usual game of supplying more and more and yet-more funds to gray companies and projects and their gray-collar workers. We are having to face both abrupt changes and slower transitional changes that affect broad swathes of the global economy. The decline of fossil fuel pharoahs in different parts of the world appears to underscore how quickly pent-up change can happen especially in the face of ecological degradation and poverty. Gray, status quo bankers and their advisors are not up to the challenge of transitioning society smartly, adroitly, in an orderly manner in the name of progress and sustainability of life as we know it. If they were up to the challenge, we would not be behind the 8-ball as we are now in many localities on this Earth. It's beyond them what to do. There is more about how to speed the transition to a green future and away from a gray one on Investigations0 page. We say bring on the acceptors of knowledge and science and let's carefully follow their latest and greatest expertise, and launch advice from that platform.

As a practical matter here, if you're like a racehorse that does not run well on the heavy track (of science, which is what you will find on this web page), then you may want to refer to our general solutions now at Investigations0 page. The current Investigations page, readily identified by its watermelon-red web page "fruit mist", is the first of six Investigations web pages that constitute the latest edition of our expose of what we call "ecological survivability". Ecological survivability is our conceptual framework. It incorporates cumulative and diverse environmental impacts. That is, the historical toll on ecological survivability is embedded in the results for a given country. But it is also, of necessity, produced on a forward-looking basis. It recognizes everything, from the amount and type of pollution being generated, to air and water quality, to environment-related sickness and poisoning and the spread of disease, to sanitation and contaminant clean-up effort and ability, to mortality rates and life expectancy, to carbon space in the atmosphere, to sulfuric and nitric acid rain, to smog and brown and black carbon, to soot, to population density, to climate disruption and melting ice, glaciers, permafrost and peat bogs, to water supply, to desertification, drought and change in frequency and intensity of rainfall, to extreme weather events and natural catastrophes, to climate refugees, to loss of biodiversity and ongoing extinction and endangerment of multitudes of species, to proliferation of rogue, alien and invasive species, to deforestation and other land-use changes, to natural resources and natural capital, to structure and efficiency of industry, to mass mobility and low-carbon fuels, to use of clean, green technologies and renewable energy sources, to subsidence and / or rise in sea level and increase in salination in water and soil, to decline in crop yields, to increase in ocean acidity and coral bleaching, to an alarming decline in phytoplankton in our oceans, to dead zones in water bodies, to reduced oxygen concentration in water and the atmosphere, to natural capacity of a country's physical environment to absorb and break down various pollution. And there's more.

Clearly, there are many issues here for us to cope with, for us all to take very seriously. We cannot afford to disrespect nature or society any longer, to assume too much about what this planet can naturally and safely assimilate and still come up smiling so to speak. The new millennium is a time for our arousal and stewardship of this Earth like never before. Improving gross ecological survivability everyday in every jurisdiction should be similar to the resources, time and effort jurisdictions devote to increasing gross national product everyday. For us to survive and prosper, every citizen has to face it: What are the prospects for survival in a given environment if just one person or one company does this or that? Because there are now seven billion of us, and within one generation, there could be nine billion. So, if we are eco-conscious, we realize if there is an evacuation order affecting an area or clusters of people are succumbing to some bizarre cancer, or if the air being breathed is awful smoky, or if there exists unacceptable incidence of arsenic or lead poisoning, then we need to do something about it. Because there exists irrefutable evidence of ecological risks affecting survivability in that area. It's a call to action; there is a threat of some kind here and we should be more attuned to detecting it and responding to it. Delaying action is apt to make the situation messier and more costly to deal with later on. Ignore it, and negative impacts and consequences are apt to arise later in a more cumulative form, perhaps in a guise we understand less well and in other regions we did not anticipate. This means ecological risks are mounting and survivability is lessening.

Many ecological risk phenomenon, factors, agents and vectors are decidedly cross-border in nature - heat, light, ultraviolet rays, gamma radiation, radioactive particles, dust, soot, metal flakes, smoke, fumes, viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, plants, animals and, of course, people, too. So we are pretty much all in this together, our quest collectively for ecological survival.

As we have gained experience with all this, it has become apparent that assessing ecological survivability as a function of time and space is not as abstract as it may appear first go-around. Quite the contrary. Many eco-breakdown events around the world seem to us to be less surprising than they once were. However, what particular hurricane, heatwave, wildfire, drought or flooding event is likely attributable to anthropogenic climate disruption and global warming is often debatable. Certain weather event in a region may become a pattern if it is repeated enough or is long enough in duration such as a multi-year-grip drought. Its continuation at some juncture allows a judgment to be made characterizing the phenomenon as a bonafide change in climate for the area. This dynamic then becomes embedded in expectations regarding long range weather forecasts for the area. 

Those that have followed this Investigation carefully will realize our ecological survivability as a function of time and space does have significant forward-looking value. The successes to date underscore the critical importance of evaluating, projecting, monitoring and reporting on ecological survivability. In our humble opinion, it beats what the venerable U.N. and 194 countries have so far in the run-up to Durban. And our phone lines and mailboxes are open for those who want to dip into this. Durban needs some heavy duty back-up schemes, and this approach is one of the brightest stars in the firmament. Moreover, we own all this intellectual property and are willing to negotiate licensing terms or consider sale of our Investigations pages.

The collective natural wealth of this Earth is what ensures survivability of living things and we are all equally responsible for stewardship of the Earth. Times are changing quickly now and ecological risks are becoming more clearly defined scientifically and legally with every passing day. The need for sustainable growth and ecological survivability is real and has become imperative for virtually every jurisdiction on Earth. There is wide recognition now that the hour is very late for preserving and enhancing the ecological vigour of many ecosystems. There is nothing relative or differentiated about the responsibility for running down an ecosystem. Neanderthalian projects that ravage the environment and contribute inordinately to alteration of the climate and abnormal or extreme weather conditions, cannot be pursued any longer anywhere.

This is what we mean by ecological survivability, and it should not deteriorate further in any jurisdiction. The Earth is boxed-in from being overburdened by us.  We need to enhance ecological survivability going forward. There is no option, we are now pretty-much on a one-way street. We need to be alert to, and aware of, those responsible for continuance of some developing ecological befouling. We must beware of disasters-in-the-making and able to deal with those whose knee-jerk tendency is to prolong and defend market share of tired old ways. Their aim is too-often an opague attempt to try to flummox the public by trotting-out distorted rationale, evidence and argument based on secrecy, spin, rhetoric, protocol, procedure or technique that would fail hopelessly and pathetically in the face of scientific scrutiny. Everyone knows we need jobs, everyone knows we need energy, everyone knows we need security. You can hardly use those lines to try to differentiate, or to justify more inefficient, polluting activities. The public interest is best served based on knowledge not beliefs per se. What do you know, how is it you know and when did you know it? Whether it's judges or scientists, society relies on data, evidence and knowledge to succeed. That knowledge base is clearly demanding we put all our efforts and resources into activities that incrementally improve ecological survivability. Else, its better to do nothing. That is, if you're an economic actor not in position to be part of the solution, at least do not angle anymore to be part of the problem.

If we are going to solve our ultra-serious dilemma of climate disruption and ecological breakdown, we are going to have to recognize the ecologically-hideous nature of industrialization historically and excessive population as root causes of degradation and the extraordinary demands we have placed on our environment today.

Our current expose of what we call Dusty, Sandy Brown Afflicted Countries™ is shown at the bottom of Investigations1 web page along with our Eco-Flags©™ and explanations of ecological risks and various pollution problems. We also show our Sky Blue, Forest Green Eco-Touring Countries™ there. Murky, Hazy Crimson Red Sunset Countries™ and Smoky Gray Day, Carbon Black Night Countries™ comprise the lower part of Pan Geo Investment Eco-Flags Table©™. They are shown on  Investigations2, Investigations3 and Investigations4 web pages respectively. Link to Investigations0 web page for the continuation of this page including one of our solutions. 

How does it look so far? Ever been to a ball game where you are losing 103 to 26? We don't like it either because we are in a must-win predicament. No volume level of vacuous bleating or superficial tweeting by anyone is going to change the laws of physics or chemistry. We still anticipate the current tough situation regarding being behind will continue to improve steadily as time goes by. We know there is great urgency associated with solving and resolving climate disruption, pollution and population-pressure mega-problems. Happily, there is considerable manpower and resources planned and at-work making contributions to solutions to this very vexing state of affairs. There appears to be more and more action "in our bullpen" every waking day which is great news because we need plenty of support in relief. It's vital to maintain focus and a winning attitude because our side, the side for humanity and sustainability, cannot fathom losing this one.

In our opinion, as we outline in grimy detail on these very webpages, our fate will be determined by the physical and biochemical aspects of our existence, the ecological survivability of people, habitat and nations collectively. Our climate, the health, biodiversity and balance that once characterizing our ecosystems, is critically important and must be protected, restored, replenished. Let's not burn too many things or dump too much waste into waterways, lest we monkey too much with the carbon cycle, chemical oxygen demand or photosynthesis.

We believe the controlling variables, the situation that should concern us all the utmost, is captured by the 2029, 2039 and 2049 "headlights" shown to the left in our Eco-Flags Table. Our comprehensive concept we call ecological survivability forms the basis of our assessments and rank ordering. The current headlight values shown for a jurisdiction reflect, in our judgment, the overall health and wellness of ecosystems, including all lifeforms there, anticipated for the timeframe indicated. Pieces of paper are not going to help us or our children if we do not maintain the delicate balance of our natural world. The Ecology Bank of Earth cannot go down-and-down or organisms including homo sapiens will be going down with it. The time has come today to stop and seek to recast, replace or restrict all remaining scorched-earth, polluting activities before the consequences of that mayhem escalates any further than it already has. Some oldtimers say, well, we're out here in the boonies so noone really knows what we're doing out here anyway. But as we know now, almost when it's too late, there is nowhere to hide from nature. Our Earth is alive, you know, it's teeming with life even though you cannot see much of it with the naked eye.

Upon this Earth, walk lightly. There are now so many of us, and innumerable species, too that we have fiduciary responsibility towards. There is no race to the finish. If in doubt, slow it down, don't overdrive the headlights or extinguish someone with unbearable tailpipe exhaust. There will be a better car to drive in future and we can afford to wait for it. Citizens of every country have the wisdom and awareness, the capacity to change. What concerns us the most is that even with that there is embedded a huge margin for error and miscalculation. To illustrate, consider that highly-educated people by the droves today continue to puff away on tobacco products despite prominent and often stark messages written on every pack and in advertisements concerning the crazy health and wellness risks people are taking with there own life by doing so. Yet they do it anyways. This kind of fatalist, lackadaisical mindset worries us a great deal because it provides inertia when, by contrast, tremendous collective effort and willpower is required worldwide to enhance the ecological survivability of Earth. Widespread cooperation on these matters is essential or we are probably doomed.

Eco-Flag©™ "tail-lights" are shown on the right-hand-side of our four Eco-Tables. Tail-lights include: "1900s" column lights that reflect the historical situation of the 19th and 20th centuries; "2010" column colored-boxes that encapsulate the current situation ecologically plus aspirations and intentions; and "2019" column values that may depend on the nature of the binding laws that govern legal actions in a country. Often, despite their importance to our very existence, environmental and energy laws are slow to be updated. Therefore, in the absence of particular information, intentions and data we look for, we sometimes insert the 2019 lights color by default based on current legal measures to deal with pollution, clean energy and global climate disruption.

As a first approximation, the existing ecological state of a country or countries may be assumed to have arisen due to historical laws, rules and regulations so that is reflected in our Eco-Table. Unfortunately for all of us, there often exists a lag between when a rigorous legal framework is introduced and when ecological survivability is enhanced in that country. It's the latter that saves our bacon not the former, that's the point that should not be overlooked. It's also evident that there are very few commercial interests and not enough consumers that are willing to act decisively on their own accord to take vigorous environmentally-friendly actions unless and until their government revamps the laws, rules and regulations. Therefore, eco-conscious legislation or regulation is generally considered to be a precondition for improving our natural world en masse.

Relevant testing and data collection concerning our environment may be insufficient, untimely or kept confidential thus slowing a response or public pressure to act to rectify a particular situation. Enforcement, including compliance monitoring, reporting and verification, is often inadequate, questionable or unaccountable ultimately introducing yet-another cause for delay in reclamation, rejuvenation and restoration of our environment. Progress here is too-often painfully slow meaning we have to step-up our game here too by more than a notch or two. This is the play-offs now and our level of play has to rise accordingly. Or we run the risk of being eliminated.

There is a 24-color scheme in our Global and Eco-Flags Tables at this website. The particular color reflects the relative health, harmony and sustainability of ecosystems. The range of colors includes in order: dark blue, blue, dark green, green, light green, green-gold, yellow, cream, amber, tan, brown, ox-blood brown, light orange, cadmium or flat red, light pink, pink, crimson, indigo purple, mauve, gray, charcoal gray, lead black and black. So what quadrant is your country in now - green, brown, red or gray? Keep visiting us here for answers. On a best efforts basis, the color of status lights in these tables change with time as we become aware of relevant events, information and legal changes affecting a particular jurisdiction.

Toll Scroll™ form Green Earth Memoranda & Solution ("GEMS")

On this web page and on Investigations0, Investigations1, Investigations2, Investigations3 and Investigations4 pages, Pan Geo Investment Inc. presents the latest iteration of our investigation and Eco Table with Eco Flags and Memoranda. It was first published December 9, 2007.

May 26, 2010 to now -  Pan Geo Investment Inc. is offering our Green Earth Memoranda and Solution ("GEMS")™ in the format of a Toll Scroll™. This format of Memoranda covers what is presented in our essays and Eco-Tables on the six Investigations web pages of this website. You do not have to register to gain access. On an honour system, if you utilize this GEMS investigation service by scrolling further down the page beyond this Toll Scroll paragraph to utilize the content there in whole or in part (excluding web page navigation aids, advertisements, videos, search boxes and footnotes to the web page which are not part of our Toll Scroll), the following schedule of fees applies: To read this current PanGeoInvestment.com ("our") Investigations.htm page content beyond the introductory paragraphs above and this Toll Scroll section, cost is US $9.94; to use our Investigations0 page content beyond the initial paragraphs (displayed with a larger font size), cost is US $9.95; to utilize our Investigations1 page content beyond the lead-in paragraphs (having a larger font size), cost is US $9.96; to read our Investigations2 page content beyond the beginning paragraphs (with a larger font size), cost is US $9.97; to use our Investigations3 page content beyond the Toll Scroll paragraph, cost is US $9.98; to utilize our Investigations4 page content beyond the introductory paragraphs (having a larger font size), cost is US $9.99. For GEMS on all six Investigations web pages, cost is US $49.94. Please remit payment using the PayPal™ Buy Now button below where credit cards may be used, or send payment directly to us at the following address: Pan Geo Investment Inc., 30018 - 8602 Granville St., Vancouver, B.C. V6P 5A0 Canada. We very much appreciate your business, thank you.

GEMS on our Investigations.htm web page - US $9.94

GEMS on all six Investigations web pages - US $49.94

The design, methodology and content, in whole or in part, of Green Earth Memoranda and Solution ("GEMS")™ is for private, non-commercial use only and cannot be re-distributed, utilized or otherwise incorporated in some other entities advertisements, promotions, products or services. 

Aqua is a clear, light blue perhaps with a greenish tinge as in some marine environments. Chartreuse is a clear, light green color with a yellowish tinge, often spoken of in the fashion industry. Our Aqua and Chartreuse Works facilities were added February 21, 2011. Minor edits have been made below to reflect that expansion. Light Yellow Works was launched on May 30, 2010.

May 30, 2010 -  Pan Geo Investment Inc. is now offering our global Aqua, Chartreuse and Light Yellow Works™ facilities. This is our viral marketing scheme for selling the current content on our six Investigations web pages. Here's how it works: third parties can act as sales agents for us to close a sale. Selling particulars are described in the subsection above dated May 26, 2010. A global Aqua, Chartreuse or Light Yellow Worker sales agent causes a new, first-time buyer to visit this website and purchase from our Investigations page offerings. That new customer of ours pays us in the usual way. However, at the time of that sale or within three months thereafter, this buyer notifies us who their sales agent was for that sale. We check our system to see what number of sale this was for that Aqua, Chartreuse or Light Yellow Worker ("Worker"). We rebate a payment of "$R" back to this Worker. We will use a specific example to illustrate how the amount of $R is determined. Suppose this new customer of ours purchased our Investigations3 page content beyond the Toll Scroll paragraph, so the cost was US $9.98. We charged this new customer $C = US $9.98. This new customer identified a particular Worker as their selling party. We look up that person and see it was their 12th sale made for us. So N = 12 here and we rebate to that person an amount $R = $(C - ( (C/2) + (C/N) ) ) whenever N = 2 or more, or (9.98 - 4.99 - 0.83) if N = 12 which equals US $4.16. The N = 1 first sale for all future Workers is for themselves at the cost, $C. Their N = 2 sale has $0 rebate calculated. On the third sale by the agent, the payment would be (9.98 - 4.99 - 3.33), or US $1.66. You can see the Worker sales agent slice of the pie escalates rather quickly. In fact, unbelievable as it may seem, their gross revenue from a particular sale can conceivably exceed ours allowing for the fact that Pan Geo Investment Inc. sets aside US $1.00 of our revenue from each and every sale we ever make and put it into our in-house Yellow-Lit Mud Hut Fund™ as described near the bottom of Also Eligible web page. The only stipulations we have for this global Aqua, Chartreuse and Light Yellow Works™ employment is that it be legal for the Worker in the jurisdiction they are operating in and that selling activity is conducted in a professional manner. The Worker must also have been a customer of ours already for the Investigations web pages they are selling to others as a Worker. We ask that our agents try to wear aqua, chartreuse or light yellow clothes when conducting Aqua, Chartreuse or Light Yellow Works, and point out to the prospective customer that Aqua, Chartreuse and Light Yellow Workers around the world dress in aqua, chartreuse or light yellow when spreading the word about this Investigations web page offering. We of course need to know the identity of all our Workers, how they can be contacted and their address for us to send them their payments. In the end, we decide who our agents are and we are under no obligation to continue any existing agency relationship with a particular party. We hope and trust our global Aqua, Chartreuse and Light Yellow Works™ facilities will help create employment opportunities around the world in many countries. Nothing would make us happier than knowing some poor family living near the Sahel belt somehow found a way to sell local officials on our Investigations web pages and is now receiving significant micropayments of powerful US dollars from us. Global Aqua, Chartreuse and Light Yellow Works show in another way how it is possible that someone simply gaining access to computers and the Internet may conceivably turn their life around and rise from being destitute. As Investment Advisor, not as a charity, not as a foundation, we humbly blaze a trail with our global Aqua, Chartreuse and Light Yellow Works facilities. This is like the Kentucky Derby folks, and we again set the torrid pace that competitors of ours wilt from. They really have a hard time coping with us. More so now than ever before because "us" now also includes Pan Geo Investment Inc.'s global network of cool Aqua, Chartreuse and Light Yellow Workers.  

Our Ecological Survivability

An Investigation of Climate Change, Green Investing and Sustainable Growth

Let's start with the consumer since their demands account for two-thirds of aggregate demand. We have to admit we are spooked by looking at the mapsheets of conurbations. Roads, highways and freeways headed everywhere but kind-of ending up nowhere, like a Mobius strip or loop. On the pollution reduction front, we need breakthroughs here fast. In the "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" category, we recommend not going on that next iffy power drive down the expressway. Or the aimless fuel combustion spree after that. Try to hold-off until we solve some fundamental transportation problems. Of course, we now need greatly-expanded mass transit, high-speed rail, low-carbon fuels, bicycles, horses and camels. More generally, we ask people to curtail lighting matches and fires to burn all kinds of things aerobically, in open air. Widespread forest, bush and field fires have been devastating in many jurisdictions around the world and have presented a health hazard to anyone inhaling the smoke, soot and particulates. More generally, whenever we burn, refine or smelt, for example, even when recycling metals, more dioxins are released into the environment. This would not matter so much if there were only 1 billion people on Earth but heading towards 10 billion inhabitants we are up against it given the relatively small, closed breathing shell we all share, our atmosphere.

Can we decree use of motion-sensitive lighting in our buildings and homes so lights power down or off when noone is around? Why is every office on every floor of every buiding of evry city and town lit up-all-night long when no work is being done? Dark-sky legislation that is now in-place for various cities and towns is a jim-dandy way to affect powering-down to reduce unnecessary lights and undesirable lighting intensity. This also provides a healthier, lower-stimulus environment for organisms to replenish and regenerate. Furthermore, there are claims that civic air pollution is reduced through dimming due to the effect on chemical reactions in the atmosphere.

Regarding industrial and commercial activities, no entity should perpetuate some dracula-of-pollution project. There now exists eco-friendly, viable alternatives to most of these monsters. In some cases, we have to pay more for higher quality products and services including essential services such as cleaner power. So be it. That's basic economics. That's how society progresses, to pay a premium for better whatever. Why try to rally citizens to cry about having to pay more for clean power that doesn't pollute the air and water and make us sick? Stodgey, old-line politics, media, utilities, energy companies and financial institutions are too-often too-sneaky and slow to change when confronted with a better way forward. They really want to continue to bankroll their steady state of income. But they will never admit that's what drives them to "defend share" and "outperform" by expending such great efforts getting in the way of change in an attempt to slow or stop it. Quite the contrary, we need advancements now, more and faster change, more research and development to tap into our blessed ability to learn, our vast reservoir of knowledge and our human experience. It's easy to tap into a draught beer or spin a rolodex and try to maintain your part of the status quo. It's many orders of magnitude more challenging to tap into science and mathematics texts or spin a hard drive seeking innovation for the benefit of our future health and welfare on this Earth.

Investors need to be especially wary about old industry archetypes that can no longer compete meritoriously but who have significant resources and well-established relationships and contacts. These entities may attempt to persist commercially using various tactics and strategies some of which are not that wholesome or forthright, and may in fact be misleading or deceptive. Here comes the twister - they are known to try to paint themselves as beacons of economic stability or as the heroic action figures whose viability as a going concern is being counted-on for national security reasons. We don't swallow that one whole. 

Rather, we believe the vast majority of scientists among many others think its precisely the opposite way around: Climate change, extraordinarily disruptive weather events and degradation of the natural environment including deforestation, desertification, acidification of the oceans, loss of ecosystems, species and biodiversity and ongoing, heavy-polluting activities are, by virtue of their existential and socioeconomic implications plus the great-unknowns associated with these phenomena, quickly becoming the paramount security issues of the new millennium for virtually every country. Dealing with volatility in marketplaces is difficult enough for many people, now we have the rising global overprint from ecological volatility and survivability to mix in.

We want to be clear that our doctrine of ecological survivability says nothing about growth per se. We hope every politician, lobbyist, industrial association spokesperson and whoever else visits us does not misconstrue what we are saying. Green growth with clean technology, renewable energy, green chemistry, new this and that is to replace the old, much more polluting products, services and processes. Old gray bank advisors will be replaced with new, green age advisors and blue-helmeted actors. Change, progess, advancement of humankind and the simultaneous defeat of some of what came before in the marketplace that has not worked out too well for people generally but has of course enriched a relatively few who rode this or that old gray mare stock.

The interests of our Earth and those who are suffering through some tragedy take precedence over everything else. The real crisis is with our Earth today, with the incidence and impact from ecological breakdown, degradation and disaster. Not with the debt or stock markets, a purely human construct to allocate wealth and value developments. In the latter case, we are the legislators, regulators, adjudicators and enforcers. A solution can always be found to any market or economic situation. By way of stark contrast, we possess none of those roles with respect to the Earth. The possibility of there not being a solution is very real. And an ominous realization. Our natural universe is the policeman and the creation, and we will never have dominion over it. We best not try to oppose or aggravate that relationship with our ongoing species loss, unchecked climate disruption and pollution brinkmanship. We should all embrace the rhythm and harmony of nature, not seek to dominate, control or push it to its limits.

We see no reason why, for example, consumption cannot continue to increase on a mass scale. But it has to be sustainable consumption, that based on the new and the retirement of the old. In principle, consumption can escalate in every country on Earth, driving can be further and faster across every road on Earth. But only if the pollution impact has been curtailed, if everything is recycled, reused, reconstituted. This depends on the physical capacity of the Earth as a whole to replenish itself from concentrations of various pollutants without disturbing physical side effects accumulating such as temperature increase, changes in acidity of the ocean, altered weather patterns and climate change, glaciers melting, loss of species, invasive and fleeing species, spread of disease, contamination of air and water. Until and unless the Earth and its ecosystems can assimilate the consequences of our activities, we cannot allow polluting growth to materialize or we are all up the creek environmentally. So, to all the ole' status quo investors, commercial interests and hillbillies, we sing "...you keep same'ing when you ought to be a-changing, yeah, what's right is right and you ain't been right yet, these boots are made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do, and one of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you"© (pretend "these boots" are the stock market and opinion polls).

The same is true about population - if the pollution impact per capita on Earth is curtailed increasingly, then more people can be supported. But until then we are "over-driving our headlights". Which is why in our Eco-Table again and again we refer to all these issues because, as it stands now, there are innumerable instances where country "c" is speeding faster than is safely illuminated on the road in front of them. It absolutely does not mean you cannot "develop", rather it means that smoky gray development has to stop, to be replaced by sky blue, forest green alternatives. It's not necessarily a slow-down of development, it's a change-up of the mode and manner of development. If you do not have the required capability, you have to look for a better alternative or wait until you can gain that capability. Human progress, wisdom, self-awareness and ingenuity in action.

The rule of law is paramount among men and women. It has been hailed as the codification that, properly attended to, can solve any problem humanity can thrust on us. Most people believe it takes mere days, weeks or, at worst, years to reach agreement, a treaty or new laws concerning even the most horrible kinds of things like, for example, war. Whatever the situation is, given enough political brainpower, charisma and will, the most grievous crisis will be solved before too long by the powers that be. Hear, hear, the ayes have it.

Politicians used to strafing opposition positions, partisan pining and whining, posturing, bluster, obfuscating, contorting, maneuvering, mocking, stonewalling, head fakes, dipsey-doodling, pulled punches, spin-a-ramma moves, dust-ups, attack ads and what-not may be slow to assimilate that we are not talking politics here. Or anything vacuous, lacking rigour or prone to misleading interpretation. And no twittering, tweeting one of us is able to alter that characteristic of the situation we find ourselves in. This is not about pitting one person, group or jurisdiction against another. Rather, collectively we have ourselves pressed against the window. It's our Earth, our real world that we see out there the other side of that window. Metaphorically, Mother Nature has a bit of a fever right now and doesn't really like the incessant demands we are placing on her. She's asking us again to clean up her house for her because she doesn't feel all that great at this time. The outstanding question that remains from our point of view is: will we do it for her? Or not? Is the time for playing her requiem approaching or will we take heed?

But look, ...out on the horizon, what is that sickly-pink mass lighting up the silvery dun-brown haze? Enter nature's law. The advisors for nature are sorry to report that nature's law operates on nature's time scale. That's right, on the geologic time scale not according to a leader's calendar. Remember those secondary school science courses? Now we are not talking about some obstinate leader "x" in some area of the world "y" who will not cooperate with "z". We are talking about temperature, pressure, mass wasting of terrain, oxygen, humidity, rainfall, acidity, bacteria, viruses, biodiversity, invasive species, in short, about physical phenomena that affect everyone. There is nowhere to hide from nature, no way to fool nature and unlikely to be a second chance to deal with nature if we botch it up the first go-around. We may not be around by the time the Earth recuperates over geologic time.

By deciphering the information contained in polar ice cores, which can only "see back" about 800,000 years, we can interpret that greenhouse gas levels are higher in the air today that at any time during that interval. Over the prior two generations alone, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the global atmosphere has risen to about 45% from 40%. It is now known that the oxygen content of our atmosphere has dropped from about one-third in ancient environments to a mere one-sixth of the air now in many of our polluted cities, a reduction by half. What is this doing to us? As the average temperature of the world's air masses and water bodies rise and more and more soot, ash, dust and other aerosols exists in the air, photosynthesis near the Earth's surface is curtailed and the dissolved oxygen content of ocean water diminishes. This increases the likelihood of formation in the water of more extensive anoxic zones, a situation that has proven fatal to many members of various marine species who became trapped in such conditions.

10,000 years ago, forests and other vegetation were twice as prevalent as they are today. That factor of two is looking pretty ugly in this juxtaposition. As time goes by and temperatures rise and oxygen levels decline, biomes suitable to support life are expected to progressively lessen in areal extent. Many forms of life are seen to be, and expected to try to, move to higher latitudes, higher altitudes or some combination of the two. Migrations of trees, fish, birds, people and more are, and will be, migrating away from oppressive heat, dryness and low oxygen environments associated with global warming, particularly affecting tropical and sub-tropical locations.

This means that added to the existing demographic pressure from population explosion will be an added influx of individuals to places having climates that are more hospitable to most species. Given this backdrop, going forward there can only be a marked intensification of competition to latch onto a decreasing share of the ever-dwindling amount of natural and other resources available per individual. If you still need a jolt of adrenalin, there are authoritative figures who claim it conceivable that only one in nine people projected to be on Earth by later in this century will actually be on a hotter Earth given the devastating ramifications traced to climate alteration that may come about. A very high degree of cooperation will be necessary to ensure this ominous scenario never occurs. We must realize and respect that the Earth is affectively the boss of all of us. No subset of people imaginable would be able to dictate to, dominate or otherwise "stand up" to the Earth in the name of what they want. Solar and geophysical forces are awesome and should not be toyed with in some foolish macho-driven show of brinkmanship.

On average globally, 0.4 degree Celsius of that temperature change has taken place over just the past 30 years. Some claim this pace of temperature rise of about 0.1 degree Celsius per decade has been going on for a century. Across the Andes including Ecuador and Bolivia, that magnitude of temperature rise has been affirmed over a time period of at least the past three generations. Ten of the warmest years recorded near the Earth's surface over the past 130 years have occurred since 1997. According to NASA, 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade ever recorded in terms of average global temperature. By the metric of worldwide average minimum daily temperature, this most- recent calender decade was by far the warmest time verified since the advent of modern meteorology. This indicates a worrisome failure of the Earth to cool, and could be prima facie evidence of where "missing heat" is, namely, in the "body" of the planet as a whole. We hope it's clear even to politicians and advisors with grade-school science experience that we won't be able to take a hose and cool down the surface of the Earth by spraying it with water. Or what if "missing" carbon dioxide has been accumulating in the deep ocean environment and, at some point in future, somehow suddenly disgorges massive amounts of the gas into the atmosphere prompting a fairly-immediate incremental rise in average global ambient temperature? 

We believe the 0.7 degree Celsius rise in global average temperature that has already taken place relative to pre-industrial times is already too much and we are virtually-certain of more to come. Contemplating up to a two degree Celsius rise is quite nutty. The last time the Earth was that much warmer than it is now, sea level worldwide was four to eight meters higher than today. During the Eemian interglacial period, 128,000 years ago, the Earth was only about one degree Celsius warmer than it is now and sea levels were four meters higher than today. Worse yet, existing, persisting atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases mostly originating from our pollution to date are said to pretty-well ensure us of another 0.7 degree Celsius increase in global average temperature over time. This is because there is an incomplete, lagged response of incremental temperature increase of the air and water expected from this buildup of gas. So including effects to come, this makes it a 1.4 degrees Celsius rise that we have already bagged. So we are about two-thirds the way to a two degree Celsius rise relative to per-industrial times based on what we have done already. This lagged effect is especially unsettling because the Earth is still in the long-term process of absorbing or utilizing those emissions.

Yet, as we document here, the absorptive capacity of our Earth including water, air and soil, has been clipped significantly by our collective actions. The ability of the Earth to continue to absorb various pollutants at the rate it has been is a faulty assumption. Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists integrating such dynamics into their global climate change model conceives in a probabilistic manner an average Earth temperature rise of a whopping 7.4 degrees Celsius before 2100 unless carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping pollution being generated by us is cut drastically and soon. A study tabled for the U.K. government cites the likelihood of a 6.4 degree Celsius rise in average ambient summer-time temperature by 2080 affecting the south of England. Such an increase embodies an average rate of nearly one degree Celsius up-and-up with every passing decade although the change in temperature is not expected to occur smoothly and uniformly. Worse, with ever ratcheting-up of temperature, that in and of itself, reduces the natural capacity of trees, other vegetation, soil, fresh and marine water to act as carbon sinks. This means more eco-pressure exists for further increases in concentration of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere, meaning yet-more global warming. Unfortunately, medical practicioners advise that every one degree Celsius rise in core body temperature may cause a marked increase in heart rate. The numbers being bandied about here, the anticipated number of extra beats per minute from any such rise in core body temperature, so astonishes and alarms us we'd rather you get this news from your doctor than us.

Nowadays, virtually every forecast and projection applicable to the decades to come being made by climate scientists involves a rate of temperature increase somewhere in the range from one-half to two degrees Celsius per generation. Furthermore, a dizzying pace of temperature rise of one-half degree Celsius per decade has already been documented spanning at least one generation across many vast and diverse geographies around the world including tundra areas of northern Canada, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China and the Sundarbans mega-delta setting of Bangladesh and India. Seawater temperature has likewise been rising at that rate in the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Gulf and Kuwait Bay to name a few examples.

As a corollary, it may now be considered quite unusual for Earthly-inhabitants to encounter any year cooler than the scorcher of 2005. This is hardly- surprising given our predicament with global average temperature ratcheting-up relentlessly. Sounds surreal to us. And we may have to adapt to the surreal: it is widely-believed by very knowledgeable people that it will take centuries for our Earth to be restored to "the way we were" even if we begin the rollback now. Carbon dioxide lingers naturally in the atmosphere over hundreds of years before its concentration lessens. The same is true of the insidious, heat-trapping hydrofluorocarbon gases which are still in broad use in many countries.

If our Eco-Tables were based not on ecological survivability but rather purely on the relatively-narrow conception of the concentration of all greenhouse gas emissions trapping heat in our atmosphere, our colored lights of hope would appear something like what's shown below:

This paints a bracing picture and one for which there is no point in our forseeable solution space that intersects with an ecological scenario achievable anytime soon where we can be assured of preventing runaway climate change. There are too many co4ntries lagging too far behind to wrest us from the mean average global temperature rise we presume is coming. Many so-called "developing" countries and other nations, too are apparently still years away from their peak generation of emissions of heat-trapping gases. That means they are even further afield from becoming zero net carbon emitters or carbon neutral. Yet, according to the table of lights above, our interpretation is all countries have to arrive at the sky blue, forest green band level to ensure we do not cause temperature to rise by more than two degrees Celsius. This would have to happen very soon now. Some experts say there exists the distinct possibility this should occur before 2020 but almost-certainly before 2050. Or the chance for us all to hold the rise to only two degrees Celsius will have evaporated. Forever. Because our fix, our remediation efforts are just not happening. Fast enough. Which means we have to make it happen faster. Because it's not happening fast enough yet. So the ecological risk of running up temperatures as indicated above are no longer most-likely by century's end, rather the risk no longer exists in a probabilistic sense because it just happened. Let's not end up that way.

All countries are somewhere along a continuum of economic progress and ecological well-being. Even a cursory look at the contents of our Eco-Tables on Investigations1, Investigations2, Investigations3 and Investigations4 pages demonstrates we are nowhere- near our top-tier result where all countries are Sky Blue, Forest Green Eco-Touring Countries. "Nowhere- near" in any of our timeframes - not in 2010, not by 2019, not by 2029 or 2039 nor 2049. There exists the prospect of more green and blue lights appearing for more locations as time goes by. But ecological survivability is not being enhanced fast enough in enough places on Earth.

The average increase in atmospheric temperature already this millennuim across the East Siberian Shelf region of Russia has been found to be four degrees Celsius. Now, in late 2011, experienced researchers there are, to their and our collective dismay, documenting widespread occurrence of huge-diameter methane gas plumes that have apparently bubbled up and vented directly into the atmosphere due to the pressure and saturation of this gas that exists in the water. We are really creeped-out by the apparent scale and intensity of this newly-verified phenomena being reported by the Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Scientists there believe such methane leakages directly into the air may prove to be pervasive across this vast Shelf area perhaps spanning longitudes from Tiksi to Pevek, Russia.

As scientists are now warning, we'll be blooming-lucky if we can limit climate change to a maximum four degree Celsius mean global temperature rise over the next generation or two or three. A four degree Celsius worldwide average temperature rise some time this century would mean northern climates such as that affecting much of Canada and Russia can expect a six to eight degree regional rise in average temperature some time this century. With that, the risk of runaway temperature change and associated widespread ecological catastrophe is very high due to follow-on, permafrost-melting-induced carbon-bomb type releases of greenhouse gases including methane and more carbon dioxide. We outline this "wild card" or tipping point phenomenon and other ones, too in more detail below on this webpage. Already, Arctic tundra mosses, lichens and plants are being supplanted across wide areas by boreal forest, shrubs and grasses. This "ups the ante" further as the latter, more-southerly vegetation is generally darker and more massive, thereby retaining even more sunlight and heat. Bog areas once frozen melt and/or the trend of depths where permafrost remains intact progressively rises closer to the surface. Species endemic to these vast expanses of tundra experience a disruptive loss of habitat that negatively affects their ability to survive.

We know this is not a pretty picture and it's one for which the blame game should be considered to be over and done with. It's too late to cast aspersions. There's no one left to blame and point a finger at save and except into the mirror of time. So we look in that mirror and remember our earlier self and how we appeared and what we did. We can think of our ancestors deeds, too. We can think through what could have been, what should have been but then what? Irrespective of whether we question the actions of our predecessors, we are met with the forward arrow of time that characterizes ecological survivability, entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. We realize the potentially-chaotic world of climate disruption and a maelstrom of pollution is here with us now. Today. Never mind yesterday. Our time has come today. It's the situation we are in and it has happened to a significant degree during the watch of our generation. That's this generation. And there is no escape clause to look for because this is not some legal construct that exists on a piece of paper or in the minds of men, women and children. Rather, it increasingly is manifesting itself in the guise of environmental diseases inflicted on people, as illness and maladies that need to be treated not ignored. Our environmental scourge has evidently become part and parcel of our current physical existence. Our progenies well-being and very existence now appears to depend upon our collective ability to address it and roll it back before it unravels any further than it already has. It's our duty collectively to mitigate further environmental chaos before it becomes environmental catastrophe for our descendants.

Because we are generating heat-altering emissions so much faster than the Earth can naturally absorb same and break it down, scientists at authoritative institutions such as United Nations, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany, the Met Office in Hadley Centre, Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency, University of Oxford, University of Exeter and Cambridge University in United Kingdom, Stockholm University, Stanford University in California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Princeton University, University of Alaska, Harvard University, Boston University, New York University, Columbia University in New York, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Arizona, U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing Climate Center, State Oceanic Administration of China, State Environmental Protection Agency in China, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chinese Academy of Engineering, Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering Research Institute, China Ministry of Land and Resources, Max Planck Institute and Umweltbundesamt environment agency in Germany, Russian Academy of Sciences, the state climate monitoring agency at Murmansk, Russia, Rosgidromet, Wroclaw Institute of Technology, Czech Environment Information Agency, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Indian Agriculture Research Institute, Indian Institute of Technology, Vietnam Institute of Meteorology Hydrology and Environment, Nigerian Meteorological Agency, World Wildlife Federation, World Conservation Union, International Union for Conservation of Nature, University of Zurich, University of Copenhagen, Basque Center for Climate Change, University of Victoria in BC, University of Alberta, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Woods Hole Research Center, American Naval Postgraduate School, Cornell University, University of Washington, University of California at Berkeley, University of Hawaii at Manoa, National Institute for Space Research in Brazil, University of Chicago, University of Montana, Texas A&M University, Pennsylvania State University, Ohio State University, Fresno State University, San Francisco State University, ETH Zurich, University of Sydney, Carleton University, University of Philippines, Center for International Forestry Research in (Bogor) Indonesia, University of Leicester, Sarhad Awami Forestry Ittehad in Pakistan and many more have collectively made it abundantly clear from their work that generation of greenhouse gas emissions is increasing, the planet is warming, ice is melting much faster than it is accumulating around the world, sea level is rising, oceans are acidifying, pollution is arcing up, biodiversity is lessening and forests, wetlands and other vital natural habitat are disappearing. Plus innumerable species are threatened with extinction, soils are being depleted and eroded on a mass scale and drought and desertification are increasing their grip over many countries. The absolute intensity, and frequency, of intense heat waves and tropical storms have ratcheted-up relative to historical norms. And our climate is being affected in a myriad of ways that is raising eco-pressures and risks virtually on a daily basis. All of this means we must soon solve our environmental conundrum by highlighting and giving precedence and priority to the ecological survivability aspects of our existence. And reduce a selfish focus on the purely-economic aspects of our existence.

A temperature rise of four degrees Celsius is very possible before this century is over, some say even by 2060 or 2070. We have not had that amount of heat on Earth for 30 million years. That intensity of heat will mean havoc for one-quarter of humanity including severe fresh water stress, food insecurity, spread of disease, flooding, "camels are down" drought, loss of livelihood and terrain to live on. By then, about one-sixth of now-arable land in temperate climate zones and one-third in tropical and subtropical climates will be too parched for agricultural purposes. 

There exists little realistic possibility of our limiting the average ambient global temperature rise to less than two degrees Celsius or to reduce greenhouse gases concentration-equivalent to somewhere in the 300 to 400 ppm range unless carbon emissions are zeroed sometime very-soon-now to avoid further accumulation in the atmosphere. Not long ago, we thought we had the fate of no more than half a chance, a flip-of-the-coin 50:50 chance, of a cumulative two degree Celsius rise if we cut back emissions by 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. An updated view is even starker: we need 100% reduction in those emissions by somewhere in the timeframe of 2020 to 2035 just to preserve this 1 to 1 even-chance crapshoot for no more than two degrees of global warming. This is what we are reduced to now in our natural world. This against a backdrop where global greenhouse gas emissions have risen by an astounding one-third and glacier melting has doubled since the onset of the new millennium, a mere blink of the eye ago in geologic time. And we have no global agreement yet for even a 50% cutback of emissions in our world versus 1990 levels before 2050.

Global emissions of greenhouse gases have been increasing at an average rate of 2% to 3% per year since the new millennium. Unfortunately, we need to decrease those emissions on average by about 2% to 3% a year until Earth reaches net zero carbon, then to keep it that way or better indefinitely. There is no grace period, no buffer of time left until we reach peak carbon emissions and start to decline. That window of time for negotiation, contemplation,  relaxation and transition does not exist. The time of peak heat-altering gases building-up in our atmosphere and peak concentrations of carbonic acid in our water should already be in our past. Speaking of peak emissions still to come is an artificial construct, a negotiating stance, a courtesy, ploy or device. There is no defensible physical basis for extending any more rope to any polluter regardless of location because there is no slack in it left to offer in the real world we now live in.

We are deluding ourselves to believe its somehow okay to continue gushing carbon for a while longer. Meanwhile, let's solve more poverty files, create a few more old fossil economy jobs and dump some more outrageous pollution into our Earth's lap. What about the many-more poverty-stricken cases that surely will be arising if we allow ecological survivability to deteriorate further from the troubling situation we have now? We need to create progressive, clean, green new economy jobs of the future to drive change for the better. Otherwise, we will be facing the unknown, the abyss concerning how big and bad a price we will pay in future for eco-errors we continue to knowingly commit every day. We cannot continue this masquerade. Many people are now aware of our unfolding eco-tragedy. But some of those parties nevertheless choose to gainsay or ignore the doctrine of ecological survivability. Invariably they offer up a purely economic justification for their decisions and actions that make no sense at all in the broader context of the real world we live in. We believe those people are a minority and should not prevail over the will of the majority or a super-majority in negatively affecting decisions. Critical decisions and actions about matters concerning the very inhabitability of our planet. Decisions and actions that are so imperative they are existential in nature. 

Due to the insidious rise in global temperature and associated changes in rainfall patterns, we are all but assured of more chaotic world events to come that will be unsettling to many life forms. The consequences of some of those events undoubtedly will result in further human displacements geographically, migration attempts and localized disruptions to peoples' health and livelihoods. It is also expected to result in further species being wiped out, threatened or endangered, so we have an ongoing loss of biodiversity. Our interpretation of research by Harvard University life scientists, is that one-third of species are likely to be extinct by mid-century, 2050.

Unfortunately, even a modicum of average temperature increase of ocean water is believed to be sufficient to add an extra dollop of wallop to storm events. We are for accelerating the migration of millions of people from submerging island economies and very vulnerable, way-overpopulated countries such as Bangladesh and Haiti to other richer, higher elevation nations especially those still having relatively abundant ecological capacity for survivability relative to the pollution and waste-stream load already being shouldered.

Unabated pollution and continuing deforestation, resulting in warming temperatures from rising greenhouse gas emissions, are already known to be have been primarily responsible for large-scale physical phenomena. This includes rearranging ocean currents; fracturing massive blocks of polar ice; affecting rainfall patterns leading to droughts and flooding; melting glaciers, perennial ice floes and ice sheets; triggering, with increased frequency, heat waves, thunderstorms, hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, tempests and more. Its also quite clear now that the ongoing northward and southward expansion of the upper atmospheric jet streams is driven by some mass scale phenomena such as global increase in temperature and/or ozone depletion or holes at the poles of the Earth.

We gratefully acknowledge and thank Al Jazeera for allowing us to include their video here about deforestation in Pakistan. It was last modified and published by Al Jazeera on June 17, 2011. Special thanks to Al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab for his reporting, also to YouTube™ for serving it on demand by our visitors.

For more than a generation now, the intensity of cyclones has increased in tandem with the rising temperature of tropical and sub-tropical ocean water. Furthermore, we now have findings and analysis linking increases in average ocean surface temperature in the tropics to increases in very high cloud cover, in particular, storm clouds such as cirrus and nimbostratus, ones associated with high winds, heavy rainfall and hail. The problem is, as the sheer number of particles in the atmosphere proliferates due to various pollution, the gross volume of moisture in the air has remained about the same over time. Water in the air coalesces around the escalating number of available aerosols until a threshold is reached and water drops away. This phenomenon acts to delay the time when agriculturally-friendly light rainfall would normally commence. Instead, it comes later but as heavy rain that may disrupt and wash away seeds, crops and more. In eastern China, for two generations the incidence of desirable light rain has been decreasing by about one-weeks-worth per decade. The culprit: people are pointing at air pollution and there is little in the way of credible alternative explanations.

Even though this ole' Earth is still smarting from the flooding disaster of 2010 and 2011 in Pakistan, early-on in 2012, we can add Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines (again), Laos, Vietnam, China, India and more. Various authorities and millions of citizens are casting-about in the search for answers and trying to cope with the impacts. Take a look at the water all around people during latter 2011, courtesy of Al Jazeera. Destruction was devastating, there is so much water everywhere. See the Dec. 18, 2011 scene from southern Philippines, review the situation in Thailand on Oct. 30, 2011 and events from Cambodia to Oct 5, 2011, with Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas, Aela Callan and Stephanie Scawen reporting from locations throughout Southeast Asia. Also, we have Al Jazeera's 101 East program with technical support from Bright Cove and incisive reporting by Chan Tau Chou, concerning the difficult to disastrous situation on-the-ground and in-the-dirty-water in Pakistan to November 27, 2011.

What exactly is happening to us here and how are we going to stop these awesome-force flooding and mass wasting events from occurring again...and again?

Storms including hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, tempests, etc. have been widely-reported as being of greater intensity when they occur now that global climate disruption is upon us. Observers of weather patterns have been noticing the ever-increasing frequency with which ocean surface waters in various areas heat then cool then heat again. Episodes of greater evaporation of warmer water into the atmosphere are followed too-often by downpours and flash flooding in the direction the weather system moves. More heat is trapped in the air due to the increased water vapour content. Superimposing a relatively-steadily-rising average ambient temperature on this oscillation could one day transmogrify it leaving in our wake bodies of continuously-warmer water that trigger even more frequent and extreme flooding events. Moreover, the gray dragon of pollution facilitates a greater density of moisture accumulation than ever before. In some regions, especially noticeable in Asia, evidence is gathering that could implicate combustion-enhanced particle density in our atmosphere as a major driver of the knock-out intensity of many rainstorms and blizzards. The specter of continuous Copenhagen's has apparently already arrived for many of us and is not far in the offing for many, many more.    

Whether there is less or more extreme weather depends on how "extreme weather" is defined. Research shows that presently the number of a broad range of extreme weather events per unit of time, as characterized by various well-defined sets of physical parameters, is actually less frequent. This is so even though the disruptions that far-and-away pack the most wallop and devastation, the category 5 hurricanes for example, have become more frequent. If one considers extreme weather to be only category 4 and 5 storms, or to refer to the incidence of locked-down drought, then extreme weather on Earth is nowadays more severe, powerful and frequent. The really worrisome weather patterns, the ones that have great potential to seriously disrupt peoples' lives, are increasingly upon us now. In China, the incidence of extreme weather-driven disasters being reported in recent times have quadrupled in frequency relative to the situation just one generation ago.

An extreme weather event and the associated calamity on average now occurs somewhere on Earth at least once a day, double the rate of just a few years ago. The 100-year ocean wave, heat wave or sandstorm of yore has become an "x"-year wave or storm. Many people in many localities have noticed "x" is now much less than 100. Oxfam estimates that by 2015 there will be 375 million people per year afflicted by extreme weather events, up from about 250 million per year currently. That's a rate of more than one million persons per day whose lives have spun out of control and been disrupted by insidious climate change phenomena beyond their control. 

In Africa alone over the past generation, the number of people afflicted by climate-change-induced natural disasters has doubled to nearly 20 million. 10 million of those have had their lives disrupted to the point that they have been displaced internally in their country. Food and water insecurity is widespread. The prospect that this phenomenon will continue and intensify in future is very real, even probable. In many localities, drought cycles have contracted from being many years apart to only several years or one year apart. Animals being herded cannot last through a second consecutive year of drought. They begin dying off in large numbers leaving in their wake, pastoralist peoples that were dependent on them for survival.

We gratefully acknowledge and thank Al Jazeera for allowing us to include their video here on the severe drought affecting northeast Kenya, published by Al Jazeera on June 25, 2011. Special thanks to Al Jazeera's Catherine Soi for her brave coverage of this very sad situation, also to YouTube™ for serving it on demand here so our visitors can see what is happening there.

We risk triggering dangerous climate change and the attendant likely consequences of that warming, namely, widespread social unrest, calamity from spread of disease vectors and mass migration attempts by people from various hotspots. Yet another example of this may be the en masse migration of Mongolian nomadic herders into cities as a result of weather-induced disruption attributable to climate change. The Mbororo people of the Congo are known to be lurching further afield, including across political boundaries, to escape various ecological disasters and pressures. Nomadic pastoralists in Kenya have been giving up their traditional lives after recurring droughts felled too many of their animals and people. Similarly, reindeer and caribou herders near the Arctic have been devastated in recent times by the effects of warming that has already taken place in the north. This is happening to them currently even though they have been herding for their  livelihood since about 1400 without any weather-related impacts to knock them out of herding permanently. The re-routing of Nentes reindeer herders of Russia's Far North has disrupted their lives after more than a millennium of stability and history surrounding their way of life.

Another example could be intense water conflicts arising in Peru and Chile that have prompted miners to resort to pumping ocean water hundreds of kilometers into the Andes mountain ranges where their mineral and metal extraction and refining operations take place. All this work and infrastructure is required to avoid drawing any more water from watershed areas, a practice that had led to clashes with the local people who also depend on the groundwater, lakes and rivers. Drought affected 120,000 people in Chile in 2008. Patagonian ice-fields of southern Chile have been shrinking alarmingly as temperatures have risen in the area by about one degree Celsius over the past century. Recent times has seen the worst drought in Chile in 50 years. If the dots are being connected here, it appears that huge coal-fired power plant slated for construction in Totoral, Chile is not such a good idea. From Chile to Argentina, many glaciers have melted as much over the past generation as was lost over 10 generations ended about 1970. In places such as Ecuador and Bolivia, the Andes Mountains have lost half the glacier volume in half a century or so. Unfortunately, up to one-quarter of fresh water supply comes from these glaciers, the precise amount depending on the water-filtering action of alpine grasslands and the amount of snow and rainfall. There's a similar story in the Alps - alpine glaciers are now only about one-half the volume they were in pre-industrial times.

We gratefully acknowledge and thank Al Jazeera for allowing us to include their video below about drought and distress in Somalia. Al Jazeera initially published this video on July 5, 2011. Many thanks also to Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri for her intrepid reporting of this very sad, convoluted and worrisome situation. We appreciate YouTube™ serving this video here on demand by our visitors.

In recent years, we have had prolonged drought in huge swathes of southern and eastern Australia, regions of Ukraine, Russia, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Uruguay, southern Brazil and northern Argentina, Niger, Ethiopia, Somalia, elsewhere in the Horn of Africa, northern Yemen, across the Sahel belt region of Africa, southern Madagascar, northern Uganda, northern Kenya, Tajikistan, Inner Mongolia, central and southern China, northern Thailand, Laos, Nepal, Bangladesh, parts of India, Cyprus, southern Iraq, eastern Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Spain, eastern Guatemala, Cuba, a significant area of Mexico, southwestern USA and more. Philippines has suffered a kind of revolving drought that has set in every three or four years since 1998-1999.

Scientists further worry that this increased dryness is a phenomenon that results in further releases of greenhouse gas, amplifying the impact and tacking on yet another incremental contribution to global warming. This is despite the fact that less water vapour in the stratosphere and the presence of more black carbon in the atmosphere both act to mask the actual extent of greenhouse gas forcing by 20% to 80% thereby limiting the temperature rise that has occurred. Various junk particles in the air block or reflect some sunlight back into space just as sulfate aerosols and other releases from a spewing volcano would act to cool the earth below the shroud of matter ejected from it. This picture is complicated in the atmosphere by localized absorption of radiation and heating in the atmosphere especially if it is a dark-colored aerosol as opposed to a lighter-colored aerosol. 

Any fires, intentionally or naturally-started add to the calamity as more smoke and soot further reduces rainfall and incrementally increases temperature. Thereafter, the risk of more fires rises with any increase in temperature and evaporation or reduction in rainfall. Australia added its quota of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere for the entire year of 2009 even before the first quarter ended thanks to contributions from rampaging wild bushfires.

We've seen scientific studies attesting to the distinct possibility of centuries-long drought locked-in some areas of the world if humanity does not very-soon-now get a grip on the rising global temperature scalar field. Multi-year drought affecting the Horn of Africa region has had particularly disastrous consequences for people, many of whom have become destitute and malnourished. Waterholes have not replenished, camels are down, croplands are dust and starvation is a very real worry for millions of people. Want to see more about this for yourself? We thank Al Jazeera again for allowing us to include their video below which first aired at Al Jazeera on July 16, 2011. It captures people and animals down-and-maybe-out in the Horn of Africa. Special thanks to Al Jazeera's Peter Greste for his timely coverage of this gruesome setting where people are becoming ever-more desperate for enough nutrition upon capitulation of yet-another one of their livestock.  

Rampant desertification crowds out people and arable land once used for grazing and farming. Internal migration begins as it has in many countries in Africa. Even with a static worldwide population, this phenomena of creeping desertification eventually leads to greater anthropogenic pressure to deforest other areas to in-effect replace or make-up for the shortfall arising from other regions whose usefulness was wiped-out by advancing sand dunes and parched lands.

The rate of change in global temperature may now be greater than at any time over the last 50 million years. Lake Baikal in Siberia contains nearly one-fifth of the world's fresh water. It has warmed by 1.2 degrees Celsius in just over 60 years. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has warmed by 1.5 degrees Celsius in 50 years and Alaska by about the same amount in a similar time period according to independent records and research of the China Meteorological Administration and Alaska Climate Research Center, respectively. A significant portion of the Earth's surface in polar and high-altitude areas has already surpassed the two degree Celsius threshold of temperature increase since the 1800's. The Met Centre weather office in UK has reported loss of snow cover of 5% over a 20 year period, that's in less than a generation. Within that time frame, our current generation, the consequences from permafrost thawing will be well-underway. Further, if we don't get our act together soon, northern climates in Russia, Canada, United States, Scandinavia and more will rise by the end of this century by something like eight degrees Celsius relative to pre-Industrial times. The consequences of this in producing further releases of greenhouse gases are very likely, virtually-unavoidably, to become staggering as ice, snow, hydrates and permafrost soil and frozen layers with high organic content melt, absorbing more and more heat and releasing more and more methane and carbon dioxide.

Nitrous oxide, N2O, accumulates in the atmosphere due to over-application of chemical, nitrogen-based fertilizers. Beyond a certain point, the application of such fertilizer does not increase the productivity of crops or soil, but it surely enhances the release of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas more than 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in our air.

Nitrogen oxide, NO, typically arises from vehicle, industrial and thermal power plant emissions causing smog and nitric acid content in rain drops, ice crystals and snowflakes. This is not a pretty picture. Noone wants nitric acid rain any more than they wanted sulfuric acid rain. The result in the human population is increased incidence of various respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and, undoubtedly, some cancers too.

There is considerable evidence of reduced day-night temperature variations in many parts of the world may be causing autumn leaves to lose their brilliant orange, red, yellow and burgundy colors. Soot coated with sulphuric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, nitrogen dioxide and the like causes a brownish-colored, visibility-reducing haze in the atmosphere that reflects sunlight and reduces overnight cooling of air masses beneath it. Besides black carbon particulates there is the dark junk of carbon-rich oil droplets, jet and diesel fuel combustion particulates, tire, wood and dung combustion residues and metal particles, too. Coalesced around these various aerosols may be invisible greenhouse gases. All this pollution affects formation of clouds and hinders or lessens the chances of rainfall. When the rains finally do come, it occurs increasingly in the modality of a torrential downpour. Unsurprisingly, this phenomenon results in the swamping of storm sewer systems and greater incidence of severe flash flooding events. Flash floods are well-known to be associated with mayhem including spread of sewage and industrial waste, loss of potable water, washing-away of seeds, destruction of crops, proliferation of bacteria and viruses, loss of property or lives and various other disruptions and tragic consequences. Ecological survivability is decidedly a cross-border paradigm. There is no political boundary associated with it. What we are left with is political posturing, risks and policy formulation.

We were at about 394 parts per million (ppm) in our atmosphere of carbon dioxide at the far north Svalbard station of Norway although Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii reported 387 ppm in January, 2009 so there is spatial variation in readings. The latest general reading available is 395 ppm of CO2 in the air. This is an appalling number considering that, until the Industrial Revolution started in the 1800's, the concentration of one greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, was generally below 284 ppm. This latter level is believed to have been the highest level of carbon dioxide for at least 650,000 years and our primordial Earth atmosphere had levels we've found to be as low as 175 ppm CO2.

Of course, there are many other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. When we also include ones like methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbon 11 and 12, the other "big five" heat-trapping gases that cumulatively account for perhaps 95% of the problem, we are now well-over 400 ppm carbon dioxide-equivalent concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Some reliable sources put the current concentration of all heat-trapping gases in the air at 420 ppm CO2 equivalent but it could well be even higher. We have seen 460 ppm equivalent cited, too. Concentrations of methane are now at about 1800 parts per billion in the atmosphere, a level more than double the amount present for at least 500,000 years. Over the past generation alone, methane concentration in the atmosphere has risen by 10%. A given molecule of methane may only last about half a generation in the air, unfortunately, spread over a generation its heat-trapping potential is 60 to 70 times greater than carbon dioxide. We further have reactive nitrogen compounds to contend with. Some scientists are warning their impact is similarly-devastating. Furthermore, the high concentrations of carbon dioxide or methane and certain nitrogen compounds are being implicated in formation of oceanic dead zones. Since gramps was a boy, hypoxic dead zones have mushroomed planet-wide by an order of magnitude, that's ten times greater.

We oppose the ceiling for carbon dioxide of 455 ppm cited by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as being too lax. This is a level whereupon coastal cities around the global would be at severe risk of being inundated. Unfortunately, something like one-third of humanity currently live less than 10 meters above yesterday's mean sea level. Moreover, oceans would be too acidic for most coral reefs at 450 ppm CO2. Based on the opinion of Britain's former chief scientific advisor, a level of 450 ppm of carbon dioxide results in odds of about four to one that we will have a temperature rise of four degrees Celsius by 2050. We would add to that a 50% probability of a three degree Celsius rise over pre-industrial levels. Of course, we still have the other greenhouse gases to worry about too not to mention pollution generally. Other pollutants may well be shown to contribute to global warming or some other aberration of climate such as the frequency or duration of drought or heat waves, the intensity of storms or to affect cloud formation or ocean current circulation.

350 ppm of carbon dioxide is a much more realistic level to be at if we want to ensure our planet is inhabitable for succeeding generations. Coral reefs almost-certainly will be beyond hope of recovery, indeed will be in-line for continued degradation unless we get back to somewhere approaching the 350 ppm level. Estimates are that one-third of coral reefs will be dead and gone within a generation in tandem with capitulation of various species of plankton and shellfish. About one-sixth of coral reefs have been destroyed already as ocean acidity ratchets up and coral-bleaching spreads. Water near the surface of the Andaman Sea off northwestern Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar, in places is now a whopping 4 degrees Celsius warmer than the long term average temperature. Relentless heat and blazing sunlight has contributed to extensive and wide-ranging coral reef bleaching and capitulation.

Furthermore, we do not know the level at which polar ice sheets may break down and collapse but we do have evidence that if we go beyond that tipping point level for too long it may be too late because belatedly cutting back to 350 ppm thereafter may not save very much of those precious frozen fresh water masses.

We are wondering how with less than seven billion people on the earth now generating waste-streams, what about the 35% to 40% increase in emissions by 2050 as a result solely of the population explosion, ceteris paribus, when the global population is said by demographers to likely approach nine to 9.5 billion people? This means for example that if you cut back pollution by 50% by 2050, the average polluting individual "point source" will have to cut back by much more than 50% to achieve the overall 50% reduction. According to our simple calculation, all else being equal, it would be effectively a 70% cutback on a per capita basis that is needed. If by 2050 say, this ole' Earth can only handle 20 billion tonnes or so per year more greenhouse gases to avoid high fever, we are looking at only two tonnes per year per person on a planet with 10 billion souls. Or is five billion people more realistic? This is why we think it's far easier to start now reducing population growth in many jurisdictions or we'll be having to face a severely-reduced quality of life for the huddled masses. Our Earth and ecosystems react to absolute quantities not to a relative measure calculated on a per capita basis. Worse, as deglaciation, deforestation and desertification increase, the absolute quantities of various pollutants the Earth can successfully grapple with and assimilate is apt to decrease. This means the ecological survivability of our Earth in aggregate will be such that a sharply-lower number of people can be supported than the four and a half billion or so that once were able to live in a state of quasi-sustainable equilibrium with the planet. We have seen estimates by authoritative people that this life support figure could ultimately dip as low as one billion people who can survive and prosper on Earth. It is not said to be most likely but it is conceivable.

Interpretations of recent NASA satellite data reveal that global sea levels are rising 50% faster than was the case only 15 years ago. Global warming increases the rate of organic decay and ice melt thereby increasing the albedo or darker surface area which is then expected to result in enhanced warming. In the aggregate, about one-third of late-summer Arctic sea ice has already disappeared in one generation of time. And plausible, comprehensive models exist that reasonably project the complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice during summertime as soon as 2015. To the extent that sea ice melts and thins and coniferous boreal forests spread north into icy tundra regions, a phenomenon that has already been documented to be taking place, the associated increase in dark matter and water much darker than snow and ice reduces the reflectivity of sunlight at the earth's surface relative to what it was previously thereby accelerating the warming process. Dust, soot and other particulates from pollution around the world may end up settling on ice and snowpack, darkening the surface area further. Water temperature anomalies of as much as seven degrees Celsius have been recorded in the Beaufort Sea near Alaska and air temperature anomalies of five degrees Celsius above the Eastern Siberian Shelf. Spring melting in the Beaufort Sea area of the western Arctic has been found to be occurring some two weeks earlier in recent times than it did merely a generation ago.And we are still not through facing up to the full magnitude of potential or likely temperature increases. Alarmingly, a five or six degree Celsius temperature increase has already occurred on average in midwinter in the Antarctic Peninsula. Rain is becoming more frequent here which further contributes to lubricating, refreezing, cracking, heaving, bursting and calving of ice and, of course, to enhanced melting. The average time per year the ocean has ice proximal to the peninsula has dropped by a full three months over a generation. Across the greater expanse of West Antarctica the average temperature has risen by more than half a degree Celsius in less than two generations. In less than a generation, at least six Antarctic ice shelves have collapsed and disappeared. Remember what you were doing in 2000? Seems like the blink of an eye ago and it most certainly is when talking about geologic time intervals. Nevertheless, in that brief time span, the outlook for "m" amount of melting to occur on Pine Island of West Antarctica is for that melting to occur not over more than half a millennium as was thought in 2000 but rather in less than a century. This revision involves not a factor of six, not two. 

What's more, as ice calving and ice tongue melting occurs at greater scale due to warming water and air above and below the ice mass, there may be less frictional resistance and inertia to follow-on cracking and conveyor of huge hunks of ice shelves seaward. Even the bluest ice, that which survived centuries intact, may now be seen crashing into the Arctic Ocean and melting away in the saltwater in less time than a fortnight. The impact from collapsing ice sheets can be so powerful it sometimes constitutes a newly-recognized type of earthquake epicenter. Less than a generation ago, most earth scientists would have balked at the thought of seeing glaciers move with the naked eye. Nowadays, its undeniable that it is happening in some places. The creepiest part may be what we cannot see, that which is taking place at the base of ice flows. Unfortunately in Antarctica, we already have news about this gleaned from satellite data analysis of glacial lakes beneath land-based ice sheets. The problem is that the extent of melting ice can be detected but exactly where the meltwater is going sometimes cannot be. This prompts the worry that perhaps it is accumulating as a lubricative layer of great areal extent at the base of ice masses. Such a phenomenon, if it is occurring, would increase the likelihood of huge volumes of ice creeping, in effect sliding slowly, into the ocean and eventually melting there resulting in a substantial further rise in global sea level.

Even though a seven meter rise in global mean sea level would mean total calamity for about two-thirds the world population who now live and work below this amount, an increase of this magnitude only entails a meltdown of around 10% the current volume of ice on Earth. If you like rolls of the dice, it's now said there is already a 50% chance, that is, half a certainty that the Greenland ice sheet will melt in its entirety, an event that over many decades would result in worldwide sea level rise of about seven meters. Warming of a cumulative 1.9 degrees Celsius could conceivably trigger meltdown of all Greenland's ice irretrievably. It has been thousands of years since the massive Ilulissat glacier of Greenland has been as small as it is now and there are already far-reaching changes taking place in Greenland as a result of global warming and climate disruption. It is known that melting in 2008 was three times greater than what occurred during 2007. Scientists also point out that the surface area in Greenland undergoing melting has increased by more than half in less than a decade. Beyond gainsay regarding the fate of Greenland, many scientists have cited a five meter rise of global sea level being entirely-possible sometime this century, although magnitudes up to perhaps-half that amount are still considered to be the mainstream of expert opinion and advice.

In America, those quaint days are over when seemingly we only had to worry about New Orleans being inundated. A geophysical paper is raising the specter of much greater coastal submergence risk in the long run in US than previously had ever been articulated. East coast cities including Boston, New York, Jacksonville, Norfolk and Miami are especially vulnerable to ongoing increase in sea level. Higher short term rise components due to storm and tidal surges superimpose on top of the long term rise occurring as a consequence of global warming, thermal expansion of water and polar icecap melting. It makes for rather spooky reading and we hope someone finds a flaw in their data, analysis and/or hypothesis rather than having to think of things like alteration of the Earth's axis of rotation as a result of catastrophic, or even substantial, polar ice sheet melting. Normally, predictable "low frequency component" large-scale isostatic rebound originating from retreat and melting of huge masses of ice sheets, much of which formed during Ice Ages, is now being found to be supplemented by a much higher frequency isostatic adjustment which is being attributed to heat anomalies that occurred, for example, in southern Greenland over a period of a few days. The global warming monster appears to be breathing fire on us again in yet-another guise. The inevitable result? Yet another dollop of global mean sea level rise which is even more likely to have an added impact on the East Coast of North America given that it's origin is isostatic. Ever study Perturbation Theory? No?! We're quite sure what most mathematicians and physicists will tell you is that if you don't know full-well what you're really doing in an experiment invlolving a complex system, it's a good idea not to perturb that system too much in too many alien kinds of ways because the result from that perturbation may not behave in a linear, predictable or even controllable way.

Arctic sea ice has disappeared by one-third in a generation or so. Moreover, the remaining ice has become noticeably thinner, weaker and greasier in its luster. Dark specks of various pollutants are evident. The Norwegian International Polar Year Secretariat has said that if Norway's average temperature in 2008 is merely as warm as the prior year, that conceivably could be enough to melt the Arctic ice cap in the summer of 2008 but it did not happen that year. British scientists said Arctic ice was melting even during the winter of 2008. Arctic Ocean temperatures were reported for October, 2008 to be as much as five Celsius degrees warmer than the norm. The cause of melting could well be an increase in temperature of water below the ice. Ice that did form during winter of 2008 was weak and thin thereby setting up the Arctic potentially for some very sorry follow-on summers of colossal melting. Reports are that three-quarters of Arctic ice is thin, seasonal ice whereas a generation ago less than half of it melted and refroze each year. Some researchers claim it to be about 75% probable the north pole will be sea-ice free some time before 2020. In other words, the cumulative probability of this sorry melting event happening is 0.75 by 2020 (a probability value of 1.00 would imply the occurrence of that event is certain). Apparently, most scientists studying the problem believe the time frame for melting of virtually all northern sea ice is most likely to be about a generation from now. When and if Arctic sea ice does melt, it will be the first time this occurred in at least 100,000 years. If it happens, the Arctic Ocean is expected to continue being free of ice every summer thereafter.

Worldwide, the rate of melting of alpine glaciers has more than doubled over the prior generation. Tropical glaciers on several continents including the Andes in South America and Ruwenzori in southern Africa may be gone completely in less than a generation, perhaps in as little as 15 years. Glacier melting ongoing in Central Asia and, in particular, across the Himalayas, will at some point result in disastrous debris falls, mudslides, flooding then follow-on drought and consequently, reduced crop yields. Snowpack of large areas of the Himalayas has been lost at an average rate of about 1% per year for a generation now. Himalayan glaciers are retreating at a pace of 10 to 20 meters per year from Kashmir to Tibet. Most rivers have had the volume of flow reduced by about half in less time than it takes for a child to wait to see his or her grandchildren. Run-off from Himalayan glaciers feeds most of the water for nine major rivers in the region including the Ganges, Indus, Sianyan, Muntushun, Irrawaddy, Mekong, Brahmaputra, Yellow and Yangtze Rivers. Conceivably, this ice could mostly be melted before 2049, though it is more likely to occur sometime during the latter half of this century. In Bhutan, many glaciers now recede at a rate of 30 to 35 meters per year. On the vast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, in one generation, one-sixth the surface area of glaciers there have vanished, giving way to an expanse of glacier-fed water bodies wherever this water can be held, at least, temporarily. Near the headwaters of the Lancang River, estimates are that two-thirds of the glaciers that once existed are gone, and by 2049, at least one-quarter-more of Tibet's glaciers are expected to follow the flow-off into oblivion, never to reform. The gargantuan quantities of additional, mostly one-off melt water here sounds like a recipe for epic chaos and misery given the staggering number of people in Indochina alone who could be victimized by such phenomena: higher risk of flooding followed by higher risk of prolonged drought and chronic shortages of fresh water.

Towering temperate climate mountain ranges including the Alps, Rockies and Pyrenees are said to be in-line to lose most awe-inspiring snow and ice caps before mid-century. Before 2100, more than half Alps glaciers are expected to no longer exist implying loss of about one-quarter of the current fresh water supply in Europe. Records and data regarding Glacier National Park in USA show that as many as seven of every eight glaciers that existed in pre-industrial times there are history today. Kaput, gone. The worst part of all this glacial melting is the stark realization that a retreat of glaciers and snowpack around this Earth generally constitutes unequivocal, physical evidence and independent proof that global warming is upon us. All that polar and terrestrial ice is our stored fresh water supply; all alpine glacier and snowpack melt-water that ends up in the ocean becomes part of our salt water supply (guess which one we like to drink).

Watch that ice cube in your water while casting an eye on your timepiece. Melting ice cubes and glaciers are not linear processes through time of volume, thickness nor linear extent. Rather, conversion of solid to liquid typically begins relatively-slowly during every seasonal glacier-melting episode. As time goes by, ice bonds and the lattice progressively weaken. Net phase changes of H2O increase in aging, pollution-gray glaciers with rise in average ambient global temperature, a phenomenon that is particularly acute in polar and high-altitude regions today. Old ice that melts in any given year is generally not being replaced by an equal or greater amount of new ice. Nor are weakened glaciers restrengthened back to the condition of one year prior. Ask any civil engineer about this. So every year old ice weakens further and more net melting occurs. Both phenomena are the consequence of global warming that is upon us. We believe pretty well any solid state physicist will concur with us that the extent of glacier ice melting and phase change of H2O generally are nonlinear functions of time today in our natural world. Pass along data from 2009 regarding melting, including a startling 1% to 2% or more net loss in the overall thickness of many glaciers, and ask the physicist how long the remaining mass is likely to last. The answer of "another three and a half centuries" sounds very much like a fairy tale to us.

Furthermore, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has determined from remote sensing of nearly 200 of the largest lakes on this planet that the average surface temperature there has been increasing over the past generation at an average rate of nearly one-half degree Celsius per decade. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of this planet, these findings constitute yet-another line of independent evidence of global warming.

These observations are decidedly not welcome news but we believe it is far better and more responsible to be aware and ready to face it than to be a cavalier, ecological risk-taker angling and arguing for others to share in the inevitable consequences of their risky behaviors. Capitalism and markets never intended there to be schemes to develop such as they have whereby profit-taking is privatized to shareholders whilst material risks associated with the project producing the profit are socialized. Also, various commercial interests fail to disclose the true nature of the risks their investors and financiers may unwittingly and regretfully find themselves party to. This appears to us to have occurred with many pollution-generating activities and has culminated in the proliferation of various ecological risks that society generally has to deal with now and buck-up for. In some cases, the private interest responsible no longer exists in a legal sense so it becomes a cost to society by default because there is no entity to pursue to perform the reclamation or at least attempt to recover the expenses involved.

Additional information has become public recently that wave height, at least in the Pacific Ocean, has been increasing progressively over the past generation. But we do not know why yet. Waves are now nearly one-half meter higher than they once were and coastal erosion and flooding has increased accordingly. Clearly, storm and tidal surge events will not be as romantic in future as they once were.

So we still have rising greenhouse gases overall on Earth. Couple that with the observation that historically we have relied on the land and water to absorb about half of those emissions naturally, the other half destined to remain in the atmosphere for great lengths of time. Many generations may pass and our current emissions may still be in the air we breathe. Trouble is, now we realize that not only have about half the world's rainforests been decimated over time but now apparently the capacity of marine water to absorb carbon dioxide has been reduced by about half as well. Moreover, some say ice shelves in the Arctic have already reduced in volume by half. Feeling nauseous from factors of two not going in your favor? Here's another one: Following careful longitudinal study involving all kinds of trees spanning western North America, the rate of capitulation has been found to be double the norm. The phenomenon is being attributed to global climate disruption and the extended, locked-down drought it appears to be causing. Still standing? Here's another: Global demand for energy is expected to double in a generation driven by booming population growth, increased urbanization and consumption.

Some scientists have cited a possible six centigrade degree rise globally by about 2050 if the capacity of oceans, flora and the atmosphere to absorb and utilize carbon dioxide diminishes over time because much more greenhouse gas could remain in the atmosphere or be expelled from the ocean back into the air. Extra heat in the water is likewise released back into the atmosphere. It is now known that as the temperature of marine water increases, its capacity to absorb carbon dioxide diminishes. For example, this may contribute to disruption of the Atlantic thermohaline circulation. There are already results from EU-sponsored research on the North Atlantic showing that in as little as 13 years, the earth's ability to utilize atmospheric carbon dioxide in that area has been reduced by one-eighth overall due to reduced capacity of this ocean water to uptake carbon dioxide by a factor of about one half. Likewise, recent results from Sea of Japan showed that uptake of carbon dioxide this millennium so far was only one-half that of a comparable time frame during the 1990's. The cause for that phenomenon was judged to be less vertical ventilation, mixing and overturning circulation in the sea. If this vital fluid dynamics were to slow, the amount of heat and carbon the water could absorb from our atmosphere would diminish.

As the temperature and acidity of oceans increases shell-forming organisms have difficulty in the changing milieu and sequester less carbon from the water into their shells. The inevitable consequence of this is yet-more carbon dioxide is forced into our atmosphere. Additionally, as nitrogen and nitrate concentrations increase in marine water from sources like smog, sewage and fertilizer, there is less ability of organisms and the physical environment to utilize it. Biologically-driven conversion of ammonium to nitrates slows. Consequently, the expectation is for more algal blooms and marine dead zones. As global climate disruption builds momentum, we can expect less interchange of layers of the ocean. Ocean currents deliver less oxygen and carbon dioxide to greater depths and the absorption capacity for ever-more carbon dioxide to come out of the atmosphere and into near surface water is thereby constrained. Gross concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by some 5% overall in the past 50 years or so. We interpret all this as a dire warning that we are functioning in an unsustainable mode. Any time, the carbon cycle could start to break down incrementally.  

Further, we have a selection of "wild cards", so-called because the effects associated with these phenomena are apt to be potentially very significant and can occur rather abruptly. However, there is currently large uncertainty associated with forecasts of the processes involved. For example, we have a peat lands wild card to contend with. This threat is illustrated well by recent findings from the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology. They report that a four degree Celsius rise in average temperature proximal to peat lands would drive the release of anywhere from about 40% to 85% of the existing, vast carbon content of peat, the expected percentage amount being dependent on the depth of burial of the peat below the surface.  

Another wild card is large-scale deep melting of northern tundra, frozen soil permafrost areas, crystallized methane in soil, and/or methane clathrates, icy hydrate nodules beneath the ocean floor containing frozen methane gas. High-altitude areas such as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau may also contain vast quantities of combustible ice, methane in an icy hydrate state. A global warming-induced melting event or regional temperature increase may result in possibly-gargantuan releases of methane and carbon dioxide greenhouse gas into the atmosphere where it would then be available to trap heat and contribute to further incremental global temperature rise. Recent thorough research across the Arctic has determined the permafrost soil there contains about twice as much organic remains, microbes and potential climate-warming gases as heretofore had been recognized. According to geophysical research from the University of Alaska, the upper three meters of permafrost store nearly two trillion tonnes of carbon, more than double the amount in our atmosphere today. As much as one-half of that is said to be within one to 1.5 degrees Celsius of wholesale thawing. Their estimate is that if only 1% of permafrost carbon were to be released each year that much alone could double the current worldwide amount of carbon emissions. After a decade of such releases, other research estimates that scenario would result in another 80 ppm worth of carbon dioxide-equivalent escaping into the atmosphere causing perhaps another 0.7 degree Celsius average warming of our planet. In addition, as temperature increases overall, more permafrost oscillates with increasing frequency between a frozen and partially-thawed or melted state. Unfortunately, due to the legacy of agricultural chemical residues present in a lot of ice, the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide is also released in the process. 

Methane levels more than 100 times greater than background levels of methane have been measured over hundreds of square kilometers in the Laptev and East Siberian Seas. Places have been found where ten times as much permafrost has melted in less than a generation than occurred there over the prior 1000 years. As ambient temperature has risen historically, the depth at which methane hydrate nodules and plumes become unstable and  melt thereby releasing methane into the ocean has been changing. The level at which such phase changes occur has been descending ever-deeper into the Earth at a rate of about one extra meter downwards per year for at least a generation. The implications here may be far-reaching because the volume of methane-laden hydrates that may potentially-dissolve further acidifying our oceans and adding more heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere is ratcheting ever-upwards as time goes by. Some scientists that study ice ages over geologic time claim that melting methane hydrates are the leading suspects for, or were the primary cause of, climate warming, retreat of glaciers and loss of fresh water stores that affected ancient environments.

Increases in methane may also be attributed to deep-sea viral activity. It appears that as we continue with our wanton polluting, we are upsetting the biochemical balance in the oceans and one major consequence is that bacteria are proliferating at the expense of oxygen-producing phytoplankton. As bacteria breaks down an organic compound called methylphosphonates, water is becoming supersaturated with methane such that methane concentration eventually becomes greater in the surface water than the air. This concentration gradient ensures that more methane will escape into the atmosphere than otherwise would be the case. We can ill-afford this happening as methane is already the number two greenhouse gas with an overall impact on global warming already about one-third that of carbon dioxide. Moreover, it persists longer in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

There have been reports of methane releases from the Arctic Ocean into the atmosphere possibly as a result of warming of the water. The methane may be originating from heretofore frozen hydrates at or near the ocean floor that are starting to melt and form methane gas chimneys piping up from below. But also, as once-frozen organic matter is increasingly set free and washed away by melt water, it tends to end up on the ocean floor. There, microbes feed on it in an anaerobic process that generates carbon dioxide and methane. The extent to which methanotroph or methane-metabolizing bacteria could slow submarine methane releases in polar regions is not well understood. Also largely-unknown is relying on ocean water density gradients to block or deflect the rise of large amounts of methane from near the ocean floor from possibly reaching the surface and bubbling out of solution into the atmosphere. 

Further, we also have a kind of background level of methane gas from decayed organic matter that comes into the air due to soil degradation generally. Release of more greenhouse gases on a lagged basis, perhaps up to a decade, occurs from many soil types in the vicinity of prior deforested areas. There are also now reports from scientists who connect the two prior phenomenon together. The reasoning is that the reduced albedo or reflectivity of sunlight in the northern polar region warms the ocean more than previously had been the case. Then, with the onset of seasonally cooler temperatures, due to the temperature gradient the extra heat rises out of the water. This unusually warm mass of air may end up far inland and conceivably it may enhance the amount of methane gas released from permafrost areas. So there is a kind of natural, positive feedback loop established resulting in ever-higher levels of heat-trapping emissions.

There are several other follow-on or higher order effects from warming, increased pollution and climate disruption. Any phenomenon that may very well cause amplification of global warming are decidedly not good news. Some of those effects may be partly behavioral as people react to various weather-induced calamities. For example, where drought persists, more land may be cleared or burned in an attempt to compensate for the loss of productivity of other parched lands. Oilsands tailings ponds wastewater leaks into the surrounding area poisoning fish and stunting the growth of vegetation. This reduces the capacity of the boreal forest to act as a carbon sink further beyond that associated with extensive felling of trees to strip-mine for raw bitumen. Peat bog wetlands destroyed during strip-mining have never been restored and the outlook for being able to do so in future is all but nonexistent because we do not have tens of thousands of years to wait for proxy wetlands to form.

Any trend higher in global temperature has many ramifications including increased drying of forests, peat lands, croplands and grazing areas, increased tendency for desertification to advance and increased humidity in the air from evaporation arising from incremental warming. The incidence of wildfires will increase as average ambient temperature rises causing a further outgushing of emissions and possibly fire-retardant chemicals containing bromine or chlorine. This phenomenon is already clearly at work in boreal forest regions. Rampaging bushfires in Australia, California and elsewhere spook many people. As well, any combustion of wood causes outsize emissions of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, various smog-forming nitrogen oxides and dreadful microparticulate matter. The Massachusetts Medical Society considers wood biomass burning for energy to be an unacceptable risk to public health.

The potential drying out of some Amazon Rainforest is characterized as a serious, potential wild card that we do not want to tip into. Some say the heat-trapping properties of water vapor in the stratosphere could effectively deliver a double-whammy of global heating relative to the effect on temperature from greenhouse gases assuming no additional moisture in the atmosphere. Increases in temperature increase evaporation from soil moisture and water bodies and evapo-transpiration from vegetation which then is available to trap more heat. This tendency is offset to some extent if it rains back down or if increased cloud cover reflects more incoming infrared radiation back toward the sun.

Another freaky wild-card scenario is if large quantities of soot and sulfates that have accumulated in the upper atmosphere at stratospheric heights, mostly from burning fossil fuels, were to be reduced, clear or be cleaned away somehow. If that transpired, scientists say, based on presently-observed concentrations of black carbon and sulfates there, thermometers could rise by about another 0.9 degrees Celsius. The effect on temperature of the long term recovery of the ozone hole above Antarctica is quite uncertain presently but very well could augment warming. All this tells us that on the climate change front we are in a deeper "hole" than we thought before recognition of these phenomenon. We believe we have to face up to it because getting rid of these mostly man-made aerosol pollutants to curtail acid rain and for other prudent reasons is advisable. We have to treat the underlying disease (too much pollution) not the symptoms (a secondary effect or aggravating factor arising from pollutants the presence of which happens to result in an incremental decrease in global temperature). Many moons after we published the foregoing, a thorough study involving Boston University found the same phenomenon again - reducing sulfur dioxide emissions in our atmosphere, a good thing, is going to result in incremental increase in global air temperature, not a good thing.

Unfortunately, especially troubling is the proliferation of dark-colored soot deposited over the ages on snowpack and ice causing more and more sunlight to be absorbed as opposed to being reflected. Black carbon and foreign pollutants of various kinds that have been deposited in ice over the years are invariably darker than the host ice meaning more heat is retained in that ice than otherwise would be the case so the ice is more likely to melt. Paradoxically, black carbon tends to augment or concentrate heat locally even if its coated with sulfate. So if that gunk were cleared from the lower troposphere around the world, that is, in the air nearest the surface of the Earth, that may, depending on the particle density of aerosols, proximity to the Earth's surface and other factors, actually reduce global warming and climate disruption in the short term. Needless to say, we are for getting rid of soot and atmospheric brown clouds in their entirety regardless of the climate consequences. It's better to confront this aspect of our vast pollution problems squarely and forthwith and grab the wholesale health benefits of ridding as much particulate matter as we can.

We understand its only the troposhere, not the stratosphere that has so far been implicated in global warming. Obviously this leads credence to the view that variation in activity of the sun is not the primary cause of global warming as some stock portfolio-value change doubters, excuse us, climate-change doubters claim.

Now, setting aside the potential contributions arising from any of these wildcards, let's add up the global average temperature rise increments again. On a preliminary basis at least, we now want to take stock of the situation even if it is done grossly on the back of an envelope using basic probability concepts. Finished? Do you think that number is now enough of a warning to give us all pause? Prominent US researchers have recently reported greater than 90% likelihood by 2100 that low temperatures in tropical and subtropical areas then will be hotter than high temperatures of the past 15 years or so. This is decidedly not good news for agricultural productivity. Across Southeast Asia people are already smarting from the possibility that crop yields of rice paddies will diminish by 50% or so perhaps as soon as 2020 due primarily to climate change, in particular, to increase in ambient temperature. Failure to cool overnight to the extent this happened in many localities a quarter-century ago is apparently the culprit stressing crops. This phenomenon has already resulted in a gross decline of about one-sixth the harvest volume of rice compared to that of a mere generation prior.

Link to Investigations0 web page for the continuation of this page and for some of our solutions.

More Queries and Rhetoric

We have many more current, troubling pollution, disruptive weather, global climate warming, loss of biodiversity and deforestation related questions about stewardship of the Earth's environment and ecosystems including: First and foremost, the Earth, being multinational, probably is wondering if in our world of competing national interests, something is being missed by the custodians? Do we really want to realize at what point air begins leaking into outer space? Are we trying to test at what point the atmosphere, waterways, or flora and fauna including homo sapiens, cease up? Or, given that extinction of species are now occurring at least 100 times faster than has been natural or normal historically, are we underway with the 6th mass extinction of species, the 5th being when dinosaurs were wiped out? The last time our oceans were as acidic as they are projected to become very soon now, you guessed it, marked the end of the Cretaceous Period and the beginning of the next era of geologic time. At that juncture, 65 million years ago, only mammals resembling opossums existed. Proto-humans were not yet on the scene presumably due to the hostile nature of ancient environments prior to the advent of the current Cenozoic Era. The oceans are already more acidic than they have been for at least 20 million years. Clearly, we are well on our way.

Do we really want to find out the hard way how the formation and dispersion of different types of clouds are affected by global climate change? Especially if this brings us more frequent cumulonimbus storm and heat-trapping ones? Is cloud cover lessening as time goes on due to global warming? If yes, is it causing a positive feedback of further temperature increases due to enhanced penetration of incoming sunlight reaching the Earth's surface? Is the stage set for us to find out to what extent rainfall is curtailed as a result of having many more tiny pollution aerosol particles in the atmosphere for moisture to coalesce around? Do we really want to find out to what extent increases in atmospheric concentration of soot or methane gas alter monsoon cycles such as facilitating only torrential downpours, not more moderate ones? Worse, some fear as a consequence severe disruption and even cessation of critical monsoon cycles affecting Asia. These possible outcomes do not go down well with the tightening-yoke of widespread net melting of glaciers of the Himalayan and Karakoram mountains. Another problem we may bring upon ourselves is if it turns out that dimethylsulfide concentration in the atmosphere is important to the natural formation of clouds, at least in some regions. Because, as ocean water acidification intensifies and coral reefs suffer bleaching, certain types of bacteria and algae that normally produce lots of dimethylsulfide are in decline.  

Do we really want to see how protein levels in staple food crops decrease as atmospheric carbon dioxide increases? Or to see how many countries dependent on rain for farming will have crop yields cut in half within a decade? According to the United Nations in 2009, there were already about one billion food-insecure, hungry people suffering from some degree of malnutrition. Another sampling from the "collective blow to man's empire file" is the finding that rice crop yields decrease by about 10% for every one degree Celsius rise in average night-time temperature. Tea growers face a similar dilemma. With temperature arcing-up, the present outlook is that rice and wheat yields will be cut in half within a generation or two if you happen to live in the warmest half of the Earth. Coffee, cocoa, walnuts, pistachios, cherries and peaches are also vulnerable to increase in average ambient temperature. More and more people in increasingly water-scarce tropical and sub-tropical countries are, and will be, bracing themselves for a diet of staples including millet and sorghum, not tastier recipes made from wheat and rice.

How many methane out-gassing livestock can we coexist with? Do we realize rising temperatures make it less likely trees and other vegetation can withstand drought, pests and parasites? Do we really want to witness gray Acacia trees that have withered in yet-another African drought? Or Iroko trees to become endangered by the incessant waves of advancing desert sand? Is the fabled Quiver tree of drought-stricken Africa really on the way out? Does the Joshua tree have little alternative but to head North to survive ambient heat and increased incidence of fires? We have fire-hazard risk escalating with every ratcheting-up of average ambient temperature and lengthening of the warmer, drier season. Some say the incidence of wildfires could increase by 50% within a generation. With that comes unprecedented levels of smoky, burning wood with an out-gushing of soot and toxic organic carbon aerosols that can impair respiratory systems forever. This includes of course, an added dump of greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide into the air. Plus we tend to drop plenty of ecologically-damaging fire retardant chemicals as part of the effort to contain the blazes.

Or do we want to experiment with the rate of mountain glacier melting to determine the capacity of alpine lakes before they burst? Or to gauge at what point major ice fracturing and melting of an ice shelf could occur in polar regions? Or do we want to tempt more partial ice shelf collapses in polar regions to see if it will go all the way? Do we really want to toy with the Earth's axis of rotation as one of the gravitation-induced consequences of massive, collapsing ice sheets such as the West Antarctica Ice Sheet? Or do we want to experiment with how little sea ice can remain and still be able to call it home for walruses, polar bears, narwhals and seals? Who is going to be the headwaiter to polar bears, breaking the news that henceforth their breakfast may be available as much as an astonishing 50 days earlier than usual (so please adjust your alarm clocks accordingly)?! The base of the Arctic food chain, phytoplankton, are now blooming up to 50 days earlier than has been the norm. This is a stunning development that could have very far-reaching implications.

Or do we want to know at what temperature vast stores of methane could be released from frozen soil permafrost regions of northern countries? Or do we want to test the hypothesis that North Atlantic deep water now circulates into the Arctic Ocean or at what point deep ocean circulation slows or stops in places? Warming surface water and air masses above increase the thermal gradient, making vertical mixing involving cold, dense lower layers of the ocean less likely. Or do we want to find out what the implications of our ongoing carbon build-up and consequential deep-ocean warming are for global air temperature something we may be in line for even if further carbon emissions are stopped completely now?  

The aforementioned is some of what we realize and are seeing today. Imagine how are children feel about what phenomenon might become real next. For example, we hope the recently-documented proliferation of the four primitive-brained, 24 eye, lethally-poisonous box jellyfish is not another sorry impact of global climate change. And we have no knowledge yet that there is a link but the fact they are reproducing markedly in number has us on the lookout for answers here too. We also have had enormous swarms of marauding mauve stinger jellyfish to contend with. Namibian authorities have been concerned about jellyfish multiplying offshore near them and exacting a toll on their marine fishery, not to mention tourism. Warmer water can absorb less oxygen. Could it be hypoxic (low oxygen) events in marine waters near Namibia are triggering either directly or indirectly the helter-skelter survival instinct reproduction of jellyfish as those fish or the sea life they eat are threatened by oxygen deficiency and increasing acidity of the water? Jellyfish apparently can handle more acidic water and, to make matters worse, they vent more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We believe jellyfish populations are already out-of-control. Incentives and quotas are needed so fisherman will catch lots of them and fish processors will slice, dice, grind, pack and sell it as food or a diet supplement for humans, hogs, herefords, whoever is willing to eat the stuff. We don't want to.

But what about marine life in general? It's already recognized that ocean chemistry has changed more so already than at any time for at least 20 million years. The rise in ocean acidity coupled with invasion by the giant Pacific Oyster threatens species such as mussels and Eider ducks. This chain of events is attributable to global warming of marine waters and atmosphere; we have an imbalance of greenhouse gases accumulating and its causing grief. Are we relegating ourselves to a future where oceans support invasive or toxic algae (such as that which causes red tides), bacteria, viruses, protozoa, protista, virus and bacteria-ridden ocean slime, gelatinous zooplankton species, oily mucus, worms, sardines, anchovies, seaweed, wireweed, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea lettuce, jumbo squid, crown-of-thorns starfish, barnacles, Porites coral, copepods, lionfish, rockfish, spot fish, parrotfish, puffer fish, water snakes and jellyfish swarms but not many other life-forms? Do we really have to start feeling cozy across vast terrestrial expanses and fresh water bodies where water hyacinth, wattle, rooikrans, milfoil, waterhemp weeds, pigweeds, knotweeds, goldenrods, mile-a-minute weeds, tumbleweeds, thornbushes, starthistle, duckweed, ragweed, prickly pear, monkey ladder vines, kudzu vines, cockchafers, Asian carp, small-mouthed bass, mullet, zebra mussels, quagga mussels, rock snot algae, bluegreen algae, chytrid fungus, Cryptococcus gattii fungus, wheat (black stem) rust fungus, yellow rust, blister rust, budworm, pine beetle, ash borer, rice borer, mites, aphids, ticks, armyworms, brown planthoppers, roundworm, hornets, mosquitoes, fleas, tsetse flies, midges, vermin, palm weevils, locusts, grasshoppers, whiteflies, gypsy moths, Asian long-horned beetles, African land snails, stinkbugs, fire ants, moths, cockroaches, bedbugs, black flies and other challenging, nuisance, disease-ridden and/or invasive species thrive on our ecological mayhem?

Up to one-quarter of all known reptile species and more than one-third of amphibians are currently considered to be threatened with extinction, the most sudden wave of extinction ever known to mankind. Aren't you glad you are not a lizard? You may also add tropical insects to that list as these cold-blooded creatures are as likely to roast due to global warming than quickly adapt to it. Polar species vital to the food chain such as krill and silverfish are in a sorry decline. At your dinner table, you may have to think of something else than orange roughy, shark, skate or Chilean sea bass. "Would you like to try our catfish, carp, marlin or cod" the headwaiter asks, because we're kind of, umm, running low of the other ones?

And how about the noble, heavy-coated musk oxen, survivors of at least one ice age but now sweltering to death and obsolescence in the warming oil of our Earthly fry pan? Will this world be as spiritual and soulful without the sound of the violet click beetle, corn craik or bumble bee? In fact, one-third or more of the absolute number of animals of all phyla have vanished since about 1970. Life scientists are saying species are disappearing at 1000 times the natural rate historically. Is it really true that one-eighth of the world's birds and one-quarter of mammal species are threatened? Well, if you're a pygmy nuthatch, maybe there's nowhere left to fly to to "get-away".

A great many more species are susceptible to negative effects from climate change impacts of one sort or another but their numbers have not been noticed to have dropped precipitously, at least not yet. Nearly one-third of coniferous tree species, one-of-six boney fish, one-third of coral reefs and one-seventh of marine seagrasses have succumbed forever-more to our modern world or are now threatened with extinction. Looking ahead, about one-quarter of known plant species are on the verge of being ousted. By us, actually. Further, nearly half of primate species are endangered including the mercurial blue-eyed, black lemur and the pig-tailed, snub-nosed langur. One-quarter of mammal species are on the brink of a "return to the void of never" including, for example, dire situations where it's very close to "lights-out" for the Javan rhinoceros, hairy-nosed wombat, African wild dog and reedbuck antelope. Is it really true that, on average, three or more species are gone forever every hour of every day? And with that goes our biodiversity, forever reduced. Capitulation is primarily blamed on how polluted our planet has come to be, on the changing climate and on how little pristine habitat remains compared to the way it used to be.

Not only are a myriad of species that depend on an in-tact ecosystem to survive and prosper under attack, entire ecosystems are under assault. Tropical and subtropical freshwater lake and river ecosystems are in drastic decline in many locations. Many wetlands have been transmogrified beyond recognition by developers or other commercial interests. Salt marshes, mangroves, subsea grasses and kelp beds store voluminous amounts of carbon, protect shorelines from erosion, storms and flooding and provide critical habitat for a wide range of species. Already, one-fifth of the world's coral reefs are dead or have been destroyed due to the changing biochemistry and heat properties of marine water. At least one-sixth more coral reefs are threatened and some predict all could vanish before 2040 if we keep going as we have been for very much longer. Which is very soon now. A 2009 Nature Conservancy report estimates 85% of oyster reefs have disappeared already. Knowledgeable people are already warning that oceanic dead zones could spread and become permanent. Based on that, try to verify if fish stocks can replenish despite lack of oxygen, warming, altered currents and circulation, increased acidity, various pollutants, microplastic and styrofoam (light polystyrene plastic) debris in the water and movement of alien species to new locations. Polyester and acrylic fibers have been found around the world as a constituent of beach sand in concentrations that escalate relative to population density in the vicinity.

Many scientists are more alarmed by the escalating acidity of our water than any other facet of environmental degradation. Marine waters are becoming acidic at a faster rate than has been the case for more than 50 million years. Our oceans are already about one-third more acidic than a century or so ago, a mere flick of geologic time. This is the time elapsed since grandpappy was a boy kind of time frame. The National Center for Scientific Research in France has concluded that before 2019, 10% of the Arctic Ocean will have become too acidic to support shellfish life forms. By mid-century half of it may be inhospitable to calcium-carbonate-shell secreting creatures due to excessive concentration of carbonic acid that arose from high levels of carbon dioxide in the air above the water. Further, if plankton, algae or coral are less able to form shells, less carbon is sequestered naturally by them. Nothing like this level of acidity has believed to have happened for some 20 million years. That's one million generations ago if for fun we can call the "new generation" 20 years long not 25 or 30 years. Regrettably, in this ancient environment 20 million years past global sea levels are estimated to have been around 30 meters higher than now. Gulp! That's a lot of gulps of extra water if you live on the coast.

Should zooplankton levels at or near the ocean surface really be dropping by 70% in little more than a generation? Every second breath we take is courtesy oxygen produced through photosynthesis by phytoplankton.  Both global warming and pollution have been fingered as root causes of the decline in phytoplankton numbers and their efficiency at producing oxygen due to reduced chlorophyll concentration. Unfortunately for all of us, too high concentration of air pollutants is curtailing chlorophyll content in vegetation generally which also means there is less take-up of carbon dioxide by plant matter than there otherwise would be. So biological sequestration is negatively affected by pollution.

Would we really like to know how much carbonic acid marine waters can contain before dinoflagellates take over from diatoms? Or pteropods pack it in altogether? Or are we testing how warm acid in a tidal pool will affect snails and sea urchins or their larvae? The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has revealed that two-thirds of Blue King crab larvae died when exposed to acidity levels in water similar to what already exist along parts of the west coast of United States. At what concentration of hydrogen ions in seawater do coral shells begin dissolving rather than building? Are we there yet? Already, calcification of various marine organisms is slowing due to increased acidity meaning there will be less natural sequestration of carbon this way. Do we really want to push our enviro-brinkmanship to the threshold to witness if shell-crushing predators like sharks, jellyfish and crabs enter warming polar waters to create havoc there for existing benthic marine life? Do you really prefer to eat jumbo squid rather than blue fin tuna? Do we want to witness how expansive the ocean's biological deserts can be? Or to test to what extent we have dead zones in shallower marine waters especially near the mouths of rivers?

A little more thinking ahead is what the doctor is ordering for us all because by the time such phenomena is obviously upon us, it's often too late to resolve the situation without experiencing some full-scale ecological disaster.

Subsea grasslands in near-shore areas have apparently been wiped-out globally at the phenomenal rate of about 7% per year from 1990 to 2008. Do we want this to continue any longer? Are we to witness ourselves reaching the ocean deepwater environment threshold with pollutants including ones that persist for great lengths of time? Are we to verify the increasing acidity of oceans causes a cacophony for marine mammals as sound is transmitted further and louder underwater? Or to discover that fertility of oysters deteriorates due to increases in carbonic acid concentration in water? Or that gender-bender chemicals have already caused feminization of males in species across all classes of vertebrates?

Can we discontinue playing chemical roulette with all these persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances still being sold today? Will we find out the hard way that non-decomposing micro-plastic debris cannot be a staple in the diet of endless species in our food chain? How about plastics that eventually decompose in saltwater and release bisphenol A, polystyrene-based oligomers or styrene monomer? Styrene is carcinogenic. Does a natural, real man present wearing a polyester shirt, sparkly-glow-in-the-dark tie and rayon socks? Does a suave, real woman dress-up with nylons, neoprene-striped skirt, polyethylene under-garments, glossy pink lipstick and purple hair dye highlights? Does she really want to paint on to her face a petrochemical layer-cake of make-up? Why lead a plastic lifestyle and existence that has little of the wholesome spirit or soul connected with it? Is it all about flash and neon lights or the crash of thunderclap and natural light rainbows? It's time for us all to reconnect with nature before it's too late for us all to reconnect with anything at all. For many commercial applications, it should be fairly easy to substitute good ole' glassware, ceramics and other biodegradable materials such as cornstarch for plastics and a trail of petrochemicals that persist and bio-accumulate in our natural world. Can we enlighten-up and reduce use of iron, steel and aluminum in favor of other materials such as fiberglass and carbon composites?

Do we want pollution to become so pervasive it changes the methylation of our genes or reduces the size of gene groups? Do we really have to breathe in all these petrochemical-laced fumes containing stuff like benzene, benzopyrene and perchloroethylene? Can't we curtail use of polychlorinated biphenyls in electric transformers and capacitors? Can't we use cyclopentanes instead of hydrochlorofluorocarbons? Should everyday cosmetics contain parabens, phthalates, vinyl acetate, formaldehyde, hexavalent chromium, nickel, antimony, cobalt, chromate, nitrosamines, hydroquinone, synthetic musks, propylene glycol or butylene glycol? Do we want our impressionable, precious daughters painting on nickel blush, cobalt eyeshadow, arsenic nail polish and choice of cadmium or chromium lipstick? In Philippines, this is not funny atall, becuase in about half of cosmetics they found just that - these kinds of products containing excessive levels of these toxic metals.

 Should various lotions and potions have methylparaben, propylparaben or triclosan in them? Should everyday food and beverage packaging material include styrofoam or methylnaphthalene? Should plastics produced from metal-based catalysts before your Grandpappy was born continue to be mass-produced even though same still have not biodegraded and your Grandpappy died long ago? Aren't the extensive dragnets of plastic garbage in our oceans kind-of getting out-of-control in size and scope? What if certain chemicals and pollutants ever-present in our air, water and food chain are altering our genes or switching them on and off creating chaos with the delicate biological systems of organisms including us? Should we continue to try to douse forest fires or coat various upholstery and electronic apparatus with polybrominated biphenyl ethers or to proliferate bromide if it later combines with disinfectant in water to create dreadful, toxic levels of brominated trihalomethane? Better get cracking on mass development of green alternatives such as clay and polysaccharide film flame retardants, even if they do not work as well. Do we douse smelly algae in our waterways with toxic copper sulfate to get rid of it whilst creating a bunch of follow-on environmental problems? How about clearing the water with pellets of barley instead? Can we make it through an act as basic and routine as washing our clothes without being subjected to carcinogens such as benzene or acetaldehyde?

Are we too slow developing and applying green alternatives to petrochemical-based plastics, isocyanates (and their dimers, trimers and/or polymers), hydrofluorcarbon, perfluorocarbons and other perfluorinated chemicals (also possibly including their salts, acids, gases, precursors), chlorinated paraffins, cement, fire retardants, repellants, asbestos, vulcanized rubber, dyes, pigments, coatings, adhesives, abrasives, cleaning compounds, phosphates, corrosive fertilizers, toxic pesticides, rodenticides, fungicides and herbicides? Why not try paint and other coatings made with soybeans instead of volatile organic compounds (VOC)? How do we justify continued use of toxic VOC's like ethylbenzene, xylene, hexane, methylpentates or butoxyethanol? Can't we ditch dichloroethane-based solvents in favor of more benign alternatives? Biodegradeable plates, cups and utensils are available at low cost and can be used for years so why use throw-away, plastic ones that persist in the environment somewhere for centuries? We desperately need green chemistry alternatives to a whole slew of gray petrochemicals.

Can't we accelerate finding a way to get off from using sulfur hexafluoride as an insulator of electronic components and devices? Apparently, this compound has more than four orders of magnitude, that's more than 10,000 times, greater heat (containing) capacity in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. Already, sulfur hexafluoride is being measured in the air at concentrations greater than five parts per million. Not a happy finding but one that should be faced up to with a square jaw, not in a pansy kind of way. The significance of "Durban" could be far-reaching, it depends on what happens by the conclusion of Doha in 2012. One last gasp. At least now following, Durban, nitrogen trifluoride is in the crosshairs for countries to get rid of it as a high priority item. So it becomes like sulfur hexafluoride, a gray chemical on the way out.

How can we look forward to finding we are on-course to augment the number of endangered or extinct species including many frogs, salamanders and other natural enemies of mosquitoes carrying the aforementioned diseases, beyond the 100 or so amphibians that have already disappeared over the past quarter century? Do we really want to be without hearing the warble of a loon or the raspy cry of an Arctic tern? Can creatures such as the brown pelican, manatee, loggerhead and green sea turtles, sperm whale, bluefin tuna and cobia fish survive an extended bout with hydrocarbons that is coming their way? Will we find out the hard way how much ozone and other air pollution is required before pollinators such as bees cannot sense the aroma of flowers beyond "q" meters away when it used to be "r" meters ?  Already now r = 5q approximately in many car-culture conurbations whereas r = q historically. Are honeybees, key pollinators in fruit orchards and of flowering plants, really on the way out?

Do we really want to ring the spring alarm clock earlier and earlier for plants, insects, birds and other creatures? Do we want to test how many wheatears, swallows and chiff-chaffs can be fooled into staying on in the United Kingdom for the winter? Or perhaps, how many majestic Bewicke's swans now forgo their southward migration to Europe during now-milder Siberian winters? What is the fate of the purple-crowned woodnymph after all, and who really appears to have the attention-span of a hummingbird? And the Montreal Cardinals?!...we thought it was the St. Louis Cardinals?!

Are we implying it's "times-up" for pig-tailed macaques to be hanging around with us? Do we want to find out how widespread, concentrated and lethal organochlorine or other noxious pesticides can be before the number of songbirds remaining can no longer be heard? Already, the chirping and singing of some birds is reported to be off-kilter due to their ingesting too many chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB's). Is it really true that monoculture plantations are generally silent compared to natural, biodiverse forests? Ad infinitum.

Or to find out how short hibernation can be for chipmunks, squirrels, marmots and hedgehogs without driving them to fatigue, mixed up behavior, an early demise or possible extinction? Hedgehogs may be completely eliminated by 2025 from some regions they now call home. The pika, hyper-sensitive to temperature increases, is now in a fight for survival that some knowledgeable observers believe its going to lose. Their solution to find a cooler climate is a tragic error that countless species are in the midst of committing - to move upslope rather than to migrate further to higher latitude, perhaps lower elevation areas. Soon they will en masse be idling dazed and confused on hilltops and mountainsides very possibly with no escape route. And how fast can you "move out" if you're a tree, bush or flower? Apparently, not even good old-fashioned maple (syrup) trees are immune from climate change chaos. Melons and peach orchards in United Kingdom?!...this is becoming surreal, bloke.

Are we entertaining disaster by introducing so many "sleeper" alien species into new ecosystems having extra heat and altered thermal tolerances? Do we want to welcome that brown tree snake or mega-snail into our environs, too? Is global warming behind the arousal and spread of some alien species such as cryptococcus gatii fungus in the Pacific Northwest region of North America? Do we really want to swap krill, a staple of countless Arctic species, for the tiny copepods that a smack of jellyfish consume en masse?

Do we really want to monkey with nitrogen trifluoride, an ultra-potent climate-altering chemical being used increasingly in various manufacturing activities? How sure are we that the 83,000 plus chemicals in our world already are safe? Or how much mercury in the air and methyl mercury in the water coal-burners can contribute without impacting our food chain, water supply and health? Or at what point a few new chemical reactions will start that we may know little about? Or how much sub-micrometer sized particles of carbon, nitrates, metals, etc from vehicle exhaust and industrial pollutants we can tolerate without developing heart, lung or liver disease? Or to determine what level of persistent organic pollutants can be accumulated in our blood before diabetes or cancer is triggered? Do people really want to move to the big city if they face months or even years off their (average) lifetime as a consequence of breathing the air there? Are we experimenting how salty the near shore environment can become before pregnant women develop childbearing issues? Or at what point species "x" mutates into species "(x+p)" in the field? Or at what point birth defect "y" begins to ramp up?

What's the outlook for spread of environmental-related illness and afflictions? With the advent of significant climate change globally, do we know at what point virus "z" gains a foothold or flavivirus "f" expands its territory? Or to test how the incidence and geographic spread of malaria, schistosomiasis, bilharzias, dengue fever, encephalitis, yellow fever, haemorrhagic fever, meningococcal meningitis, poliomyelitis, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, cholera, hepatitis A and E, diptheria, jaundice, acute gastroenteritis, intestinal worms, hand, foot and mouth diseases, kidney disease, chikungunya, leptospirosis, measles, chicken pox, shigella, ebola filovirus, plague, sleeping sickness, SARS, avian flu, swine flu, West Nile virus, Nipah virus, tick-borne Powassen virus and Lyme disease, helminthiasis, leishmaniasis ("kala azar" from sand flies), trachoma, intestinal worms, babesia, filariasis, Chandipura virus, Rift Valley fever, Congo fever, Ross River virus, catarrh, eye disease, cancer, allergies, hay fever, rhinitis, sinusitis, bronchial asthma, other asthma, bronchitis, laryngitis, pneumonia, constrictive bronchiolitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary fibrosis, pneumoconiosis, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, silicosis, mesothelioma, skin blemishes, hyper pigmentation, discoloration and infections vary as a function of rising temperature, humidity, salinity and concentrations of various air and water pollutants? Increasing concentrations of dust, smoke and other particulates act more and more frequently as transport mechanisms far and wide for bacteria, viruses and protozoa.

Are we waiting for a chameleon, snow leopard or pygmy tyrant to tell us things are heating up around here? Or pausing to see how well a Maldivian, Kiribatian or Bangladeshi can swim? Or to check how far polar bears can swim underwater or verify if they really enjoy eating one another or mating with grizzly bears as they are pressured to go further south to survive? Only a minority of the number of polar bears existing now are expected to exist come mid-century. Polar bears today are only about two-thirds the weight of those roaming the North just one generation ago. Do we want to field-test if penguins can still find their way and survive despite the rise in temperature? Have harbor seals left the harbor forever? Is the level of mercury in ringed seals really rising in tandem with the amount of polar ice that is melting with the attendant release and mobilization of its accumulated load of various pollution detritus?

In fact, there are many species, including white possums, butterflies, sandeels and eelpouts, whose numbers are considered indicative of negative impacts from global warming and ecological breakdown. Those populations have been plummeting worldwide. Many seabirds will disappear if one of their dietary staples, the sandeels, are in decline due to rising surface temperature of ocean water. Already in some regions, seagulls are down to one-third their number only one generation ago. The lemuroid possum, highly sensitive to rising temperature, has been heading for higher elevations to live. But how long can this adaptive behavior go on until the top of the hill is reached? Then what? What kind of world is evolving if the leatherback turtle, a creature that has survived for over 100 million years, is now quite suddenly an endangered species? Every known species of sturgeon fish is said to be living at the edge of extermination due to the inhospitable environment they find themselves in. Very likely, somewhere between 10 and 100 species of living organisms are becoming extinct every waking day on our planet. For the Madeiran large white butterfly, "time has come today" because noone sees them anymore. Anywhere. It appears to be too late to wave the white flag for them, they're gone now. Who's next? The violet copper butterfly? What values do we hold dear as people anyways? Can a politician stand up and make a political statement about that? What destiny do we look towards? What gives us inspiration? It's clearly time for a rethink, some reconsideration of our cosmic spiritual being and beliefs.

Go to Investigations0 web page for the continuation of this page and for some of our solutions.

See Investigations1, Investigations2, Investigations3 and Investigations4 pages to see our Eco-Table with Eco-Flags. In short, it represents our rendition of our historic and unprecedented descent into the murky, risky and uncertain depths of the unknown ramifications arising from polluting our planet.

Pan Geo Investment Inc., a trusted advisory for the new millennium, has been producing globally-integrated portfolio investment evaluations transparently using our exclusive, proprietary software since 1991, the dawn of the Internet.

Copyright © 1997- 2012 and Trademarks™:  Portfolio Investor 2012, PI2, Pan Geo Investment, all content at PanGeoInvestment.com, PanGeoInvestment.com, Fruit Patch, Pan Geo Global Index, Weighty 83 Index, WE Index, Also Eligible 100, Pan Geo Global Capital Appreciation, Pan Geo Global Green Opportunities ("GO") Fund, Pan Geo Global Investor Data Block, Pan Geo 100% American Strength, Pan Geo 100% American Strength Growth, Pan Geo 100% American Investor Data Block, Pan Geo Investment Global Table and Pan Geo Investment Eco-Flags Table - Dusty, Sandy Brown Afflicted Countries; Murky, Hazy Crimson Red Sunset Countries; Smoky Gray Day, Carbon Black Night Countries; Sky Blue, Forest Green Eco-Touring Countries; Eco-Flags; Colored Lights of Hope, Green Earth Memoranda and Solution ("GEMS"), Toll Scroll, Aqua Works, Chartreuse Works, Light Yellow Works and Yellow-Lit Mud Hut Fund are copyrights and trademarks of Pan Geo Investment Inc. and are intended for private, non-commercial use unless otherwise agreed to in writing from Pan Geo Investment Inc. Reproduction in whole or in part without the express written consent of Pan Geo Investment Inc. is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 1966: These Boots are Made for Walkin' by Nancy Sinatra, Rhino Records, ASCAP.

Ad Serving and Search:  Ad serving to PanGeoInvestment.com and search at PanGeoInvestment.com is provided by Google Inc., a third party vendor. Google uses cookies to serve ads to PanGeoInvestment.com. Google's use of certain cookies enables it to serve ads to PanGeoInvestment.com based on where our visitors surf on the Internet. Google may use information (not including names, addresses, email addresses or telephone numbers) about visits here and to other websites in order to provide advertisements of interest to our visitors. Anyone may opt out of participation with this latter capability by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at (Google)

Site and Web Search: Web search and site search of PanGeoInvestment.com is provided by Exalead, part of Dassault Systemes.

Trademarks™: PayPal is an eBay company. Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Bird and Brutus are trademarks of Disney Corp. YouTube is a trademark of Google Inc. 

Video on Demand: Video on Demand serving of Al Jazeera videos to PanGeoInvestment.com website is by Bright Cove or YouTube. 

Acknowledgements and Gratitude: We are grateful to and acknowledge the Government of United States of America as an important source for key input data utilized in production of Pan Geo Investment Eco Table©. The World Resources Institute report on the environment from 2005 was an important reference on cumulative, historic emissions for many countries. Nevertheless, any opinions expressed, interpretations or rendering of information presented on this web page are entirely that of Pan Geo Investment Inc. performing its role as an independent investment advisor and analyst. Accordingly, Pan Geo Investment Inc. is solely responsible for same.