More unmistakeable signs of planetary distress

The grim facts have been published: 2014 was the hottest year since systematic records of temperature began to be collected and compiled in enough localities around the world for global 'averages' to be collated. That was in the late 19th century, long enough ago for stable baseline readings to be established, for observers to begin observing and recently, observing with growing concern, as temperatures climbed year after year far above the average range of prior years. 

An equally alarming set of observations was published by marine biologists. All forms of marine life are distressed, some gravely so, some threatened with extinction. Animals and birds that rely on the sea for sustenance are hurting,  some are endangered. Sea birds along the Pacific coast of North America are experiencing a massive die-off.  Autopsies show that they are dying of hunger: the fish on which they previously lived are becoming increasingly scarce. The explanation is partly linked to the world's rising average temperature. Phytoplankton and zooplankton, the tiny plants and animals at the base of marine food chains, reproduce only within a very narrow temperature range.  Global climate change is driving oceanic and coastal sea temperatures outside the upper limit of that range. This process is just beginning. The specific heat of the earth's oceans and other large bodies of water, will continue to rise relentlessly, carrying many of these tiny aquatic organisms to extinction. The process is aggravated by increasing acidification of oceans, seas and lakes, caused by rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. This dissolves in water to produce carbonic acid. The wave of extinction will extend upward through aquatic food chains.  It will involve humans sooner or later. At the rate events are moving - much more rapidly than forecast in the early reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - it is likely to be sooner.

Here in Canada we have one of the most scientifically ignorant, politically inept sets of political leaders on earth. They are worse than ignorant, they are willfully obscurantist, hostile to science, blindly blundering towards extinction. I wouldn't mind in the least if they became extinct. But it makes me angry to think of them carrying bright children with them to extinction, children who manifestly could run Canada and the world a great deal better than they have.  In the interests of life in Canada and life on earth, we must get rid of this bunch of scientific ignoramuses who have been mismanaging our lovely part of the habitable world for far too long.