Why have hurricane intensities increased 100 percent since the 1970s? Why are ocean levels rising 50 percent faster than a decade ago? Why did the Greenland Ice Sheet diminish faster in 2005 than in any other year in recorded history? Why are large numbers of polar bears drowning in the Arctic Sea?

Could all this be due to the most rapid change in climate since our species took its presence on this planet? A team of more than 2,000 scientists has been urging us for some time with an unqualified 'yes.'

And if we don't do something soon, they tell us it will change the way we live and do business for generations to come.

'Never prepared'

This team of climate scientists, called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has been cautioning industry, governments and the public to take note of a few key findings: Since 1970, the earth's average temperature has continued to rise, and the increase each decade exceeded the preceding one; the 22 warmest years on record have occurred since 1980; the six warmest years since the keeping of records began in 1880 have occurred in the past eight years, with 2005 being the hottest year in history.

IPCC says that this heating is due to a marked increase in the concentration of Green House Gases (GHG) in the earth's atmosphere, carbon dioxide (CO2) being a major culprit.

Analyzing ice cores drilled at the poles, scientists now know that the level of CO2 in our atmosphere is greater than at any time in the past 650,000 years. This increase started in the early 1800s with the Industrial Revolution, and most of the increase has occurred since 1960, when CO2 levels began shooting sharply upward.

A higher level of CO2 traps the sun's energy within the atmosphere just above earth and, like a greenhouse, turns up the heat. Somehow, all of this has yet to really catch serious attention.

"Human beings are never prepared for natural disasters," Richard Fortey, a noted author and paleontologist, recently commented. "There is a kind of optimism built into our species that seems to prefer to live in the comfortable present rather than confront the possibility of destruction. It may happen, but not now, and not to us."

We can no longer afford this posture on climate change. We face a challenging future. IPCC projects that over the next several decades the earth's average temperature will rise between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius (34.5–42.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

This may not seem like much, but each fraction of a degree has a major impact on climate. Unless we mitigate the rate at which GHG emissions are entering our atmosphere, it would appear that the upper range is more likely, creating a world far different than what we know.

For example, the Greenland Ice Sheet covers a landmass of 1.68 million square kilometers (648,652 square miles), an area roughly the size of Mexico, and in places rises to an altitude of 3 kilometers (1.86 miles). Recently, scientists in the United Kingdom found that the flow speed of 12 glaciers, which together account for half of the discharge water from the Greenland Ice Sheet, is increasing — fast.

The speed at which these glaciers are flowing recently doubled and continues to rise. Polar bears are drowning because they are set adrift on isolated ice flows chipped off the ice sheet. They die of exhaustion, swimming in search of the nearest landmass.

We should be concerned. If the entire Greenland Ice Sheet were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet). It would facilitate the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, and this could increase sea levels by a total of 15 meters.

Not good news for London, New York City, Singapore and hundreds of other coastal cities. A sea-level rise of 10 meters would flood 25 percent of the U.S. population. All of the sudden, Hollywood's Day After Tomorrow begins to gain a semblance of reality.

As will be discussed in the third and final installment of this series, this grim scenario can be altered favorably if the increase in GHG emissions — due in large part to the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal and oil — is decreased over the next couple of decades.

However, it will be necessary to reduce man-made CO2 by as much as 80 percent just to stabilize the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Recently, a British group of scientists reported that if the heating contributions of methane and nitrogen oxides GHG, also in our atmosphere, are added to the heating effects of CO2, a "tipping point" may have already been reached.

This could mean that some consequences of climate change might be unstoppable.

Business not as usual

What of the challenge before us? How will businesses be affected in the short term if we do nothing?

For one thing, insurance premiums will go through the roof. Swiss Re, the world's second-largest insurance company, reports that the costs associated with global warming damages threaten to spiral out of control, reaching $150 billion (3.6 trillion Kč) a year in the coming decade. As a result, Swiss Re is rapidly raising premiums for those companies that aren't demonstrating an active effort to limit their exposure to climate change.

Insurers will also be hit by increasing numbers of tragedies such as the European heat wave of 2003, when more than 30,000 people died in August. And increasing ocean temperatures will bring much more intense hurricanes such as Katrina and Rita, which devastated the Gulf States in the United States in 2005.

Harrah's Entertainment Inc. recently reported more than $200 million in losses from the two hurricanes. The production and refining sectors of the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico sustained significantly greater losses.

Farmers in Europe and the rest of the world, who already face many challenges, will not fare well. An increase of 1 degree Celsius in average global temperature decreases wheat, rice and corn yields between 10 percent to 20 percent. Crop yields are now decreasing in a number of countries, including Russia, India and North America. A large fraction of humanity depends on these grains as primary staples of life.

Electronic chip manufacturers will also be affected. They'll have to find an alternative to critical perfluorocarbon cleaning solvents because they form potent greenhouse gases with heat-trapping properties thousands of times greater than CO2.

A global opportunity

Businesses can expect significant challenges. We are performing an experiment that hasn't been done before, and no one knows exactly what the precise outcome will be. However, we do know that if we do nothing, the future for our children will be devastating.

But if we make the effort, as will be discussed in the final installment of this series, by democratizing global energy and minimizing generation of GHG, we can stimulate our global economy, create millions of jobs and decrease poverty.

Impoverished nations could become valued trading partners; the Western world would demonstrate its leadership and commitment to peace and equality — and, in doing so, foster peace and security in a currently challenged world.