Climate Change

Tipping Point of the Iceberg

By Ryan McGreal
Published February 13, 2006

Saturday's Hamilton Spectator carried an article on climate change that reported new research indicating "A crucial 'tipping point' ... has already been passed, with devastating consequences for the planet's future."

Big news, right? According to research commissioned by the Independent (UK), "the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has now crossed a threshold set down by scientists from around the world ... beyond which really dangerous climate change is likely to be unstoppable."

Serious stuff, clearly worthy of the front page, right?

Wrong. The article was buried on page A16. The front page was reserved for the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy - newsworthy, to be sure, but perhaps a little less important than the "irreversible melting" of the Greenland Ice Sheet, "threatening the world with a sea level rise of several metres."

I guess it's Summer Olympics only from then on.

Ryan McGreal, the editor of Raise the Hammer, lives in Hamilton with his family and works as a programmer, writer and consultant. Ryan volunteers with Hamilton Light Rail, a citizen group dedicated to bringing light rail transit to Hamilton. Ryan wrote a city affairs column in Hamilton Magazine, and several of his articles have been published in the Hamilton Spectator. His articles have also been published in The Walrus, HuffPost and Behind the Numbers. He maintains a personal website, has been known to share passing thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, and posts the occasional cat photo on Instagram.

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