We've been told by scientists for decades. We've been told by NASA. We've been told by environmental groups. We've been told by the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change, a U.N. sanctioned group of thousands of scientists from all over the world who studied the issue for over twenty years. We've been told by Al Gore, who has devoted almost his entire adult life to taking the message to the world: Human industry and pollution have changed the balance of chemicals in our planet's atmosphere, causing it to retain more heat and raise temperatures worldwide. This has already had drastic effects on the polar regions of our planet, threatening several species that depend on polar habitats for survival. In the very near future the effects will spread over our entire planet, and it won't just be polar bears and penguins at risk. If the current warming trend is not immediately reversed (and there's no sign it will be), then nothing less than the survival of the Human species itself will be in question.

Now the American Geophysical Union (AGU), along with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and scientists from the Colorado State University (CSU) have added their collective voices to the cries of warning that have been ringing in our ears for many years now. Cries that have been ignored.

This latest AGU/NCAR/CSU study emphasizes the compound, accelerating events that may bring the end of life as we know it on this planet a lot sooner than we think. Here are some of the highlights of their report:

This study simply confirms through scientific measurement, what our common sense tells us - that warmth from the Sun will increasingly affect Arctic climate, because as the ice melts, the newly exposed dark ocean waters, much darker than the ice, absorb the Sun's radiation instead of reflecting it as the ice does. This warms the water and melts even more ice, which in turn leads to more exposed water that heats up and melts even more ice. This is called an accelerated feedback loop, and they are the worst kind, because there's no telling how fast things will change.

In other words, people, we'd better start taking action now, and hope like hell it isn't already too late. Below is a beautiful photo of our Mother Earth captured by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft, looking back on its way to study the planet Mercury. . Take a good look, folks, because it may not look like this for very much longer.

It's been more than fifty years since one of the most peaceful and enlightened cultures on Earth was outlawed by the Chinese communist government, and the Dalai Lama forced into exile. When will this momentous wrong be made right? Does anybody care? The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people have not given up. They wait, with the kind of spiritual patience unknown to the western psyche. Oh yes, we could all learn a lot from Tibet. Why aren't governments like Canada doing something? Because there are no votes in it, that's why. It's time to change that, and let our governments know that we do care. To learn more about the culture and history of Tibet, and what you can do to help, visit The Government of Tibet in Exile.