Warming hits 'tipping point'

A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.

[...] It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth's temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.

[...] Climate scientists yesterday reacted with alarm to the finding, and warned that predictions of future global temperatures would have to be revised upwards.

"When you start messing around with these natural systems, you can end up in situations where it's unstoppable. There are no brakes you can apply," said David Viner, a senior scientist at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

See also:
Get Involved, Offset your Air Travel Pollution
Guardian Special Report on global warming

As the Economist article First-mover disadvantage shows, Europeans started a good cause, but neither did the US nor China or India follow it. The article from July 5 concludes:

What could be agreed, however, is an unglamorous but necessary commitment to work for a common set of fundamentals—an assertion, as Andrei Marcu, president of the International Emissions Trading Association in Geneva, puts it, “of the political will to make countries around the world develop basic building blocks in parallel so that in future there is enough commonality to converge.” Easier said than done.

Here, the blogosphere could really help... Now - how to make this global issue so "sexy" that we all help to work for this common set of fundamentals. Should we really leave that to politicians only?