Well kids, we've finally done it! This entry contains serious material that may depress some readers. It contains no sexual content at all... pity really. I am talking about the climate of the planet.

As we all know, the climate of planet Earth (silly name for a planet really) is steadily rising. We know from the geological records that we should be in the beginnings of an ice-age right now but becuse of all our fossil fuel burning we are actually at a very warm stage instead.

What you may not know is that Earth is also getting dimmer; that is to say that there isn't as much sunlight getting to us as there used to be say, 20 years ago. This is because we are making  more soot (microscopic dirt particles) and expelling it into the air which forms more clouds (tiny droplets of water that gather around soot particles in the air) and these reflect more sunlight back into space.

Now you might say this is a good thing 'cos if we cool the planet while we heat the planet we should be counter-acting the problems... no. The net effect is that while we are creating more pollution we are also artificially cooling the temperature, what we see as a 2 degree rise in the temperatures of the world is actually closer to 5 degrees. This doesn't sound like much does it? I mean 5 degrees warmer ain't sucha bad thing really is it? Well, yes it is because that isn't where it stops. By the end of the next decade,( 2020 ) that 5 degree rise could be as much as 7 degrees and then by the end of the next decade it could be around 9 degrees. That's 2030 folks, and that means that by the time 2030 rolls around the Greenland ice sheets will have started to melt.

If the Greenland ice sheets melt, then sea levels will rise by more than 5 metres, maybe as high as 8 metres. Most of the coastal cities in the world will be gone; all of the small islands in the all of the oceans will be gone. Most of New Zealand will be gone *secretly happy - smiles to self *

Because we have been cooling the Earth artificially for so long, while we may have started to get rid of pollution, the temperature is going to rise even more suddenly because we have been creating a "pressure cooker" effect. We know this because for 3 days after September 11 2001 there was no air travel in the USA and the temperatures rose by 2.5 degrees all over the place. That was just because there were no aircraft con-trails (those long clouds that come out behind aircraft) reflecting sunlight and so there was more sunlight getting in. that is what happens when just one cause is removed for just 3 days!

Depressed yet? OK then , think of this: If the Earths' temp rises by 10 degrees by then end of this century, the great forrests of the world will be tinder dry and start to burn. A fire we could never hope to extinguish will pour more Co2 into the atmosphere and we will be living in a place where the average temp is about 60 degrees C in high summer at the equator. That won't matter to us of course because life as we know it will have been killed off years before. Most of the world will be desert and almost all of the fresh water will be gone into evaporation or melted into the seas.

But there is an upside to this story; If all the world suddenly stopped using coal, oil and gas to get energy and started to use solar, wind and hydro power production we would only see a small rise in temps and maybe by the end of this century we could all still be alive!!!!

Think that could happen?