"The lock has broken."

I just finished reading this startling discovery and it's implications for the survival of mankind.

Studies by the blue-chip Woods Hole Research Centre, carried out in Amazonia, have concluded that the forest cannot withstand more than two consecutive years of drought without breaking down.

Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable.

According to their study, time is running out on the Amazon. It's experiencing its second year of drought. The roots are reaching deeper. Can they survive? For how long will they have to? Is it already too late?

One scientist put it quite succinctly. "The lock has broken". The Amazon has passed the tipping point. Global warming will increase by 50% when the Amazon, which helped counter global warming, releases its CO2 into the air and rapidly accelerates atmospheric change.

I just took my daughter to visit a college campus. She's a junior in high school and getting excited about going to college. I wonder what the point of it all is now. Of course, I won't stop her. She might as well live out her remaining years with some sort of hope.

I look at my son, who's 8 years old. He's just a child. He doesn't comprehend that we keep seeing record heat waves. It's all he's ever known. He can't comprehend that if the temperature keeps going up, we are all going to die. I can barely comprehend it myself. I am only now starting to realize that not only will we all die, but I'll die with him. Together. How will that be? How old will he be? Will he still be a child when the planet becomes inhospitable to life? Will I have the courage to do what has to be done when that time comes?

Do any of us really, fully comprehend the danger we are all in because of the greedy bastards who refused to do anything when we still had the chance? The same bastards who will just say it's Gods prophecy when we all die. My mind is still struggling with the possiblity that the lock HAS broken and we are past the point of no return. I don't think anyone ever seriously allows themselves to think about that possibility.

Well, we may have to in the next couple of years.