• Sea levels could rise, putting places like Florida (and Bangladesh, with nearly 150 million inhabitants) in grave danger
• Storms may become more frequent and intense
• Agriculture could be disrupted
• Drought and wildfire could be more common
• Species might go extinct

Finally, there is the possibility that the earth's atmosphere will react in a dramatic, as-yet-unforeseen way that could accelerate warming beyond the predictions. We don't want to go there. What we know is that the earth is warming, humans almost certainly have something to do with it, and the risks of not doing anything about it are high — for us and especially for our children.

This is pretty depressing. Is there anything we can do?
The paradoxical good news about global warming is that it's a problem caused by humans, so it can be fixed by humans, and a lot of the changes we should make aren't that difficult, or even that expensive. The most important thing we can do is to start to understand our personal contribution to global warming and take steps to reduce it.

I don't produce CO2 — or do I?
We're all responsible in some form for emitting CO2. The average American produces between 7 and 20 tons of it each year, depending on how you count things like emissions from office buildings and manufacturing that can't easily be attributed on a person-by-person basis.

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