“warm water takes up more space than cold water does. That simple fact of physics, utterly inexorable, is one of the two or three most important pieces of information humans will have to grapple with in this century…

Admittedly, no one intends this destruction — on the other hand, nobody is doing much of anything to stop it, either. Eventually, of course, our inaction will do enormous damage even to our midlatitude fortress continent. Those pictures of crumbling foundations, swelling lagoons — that’s our future too, along with parched deserts, dying forests, discombobulated agriculture. But by the time that future kicks in, later in the century, we will be hard-pressed to say we don’t deserve it. Right now, global warming is coming first for the Tuvaluans — a little like last century’s scourge came first for the Jews. It took us too long, but eventually we roused ourselves to help meet that challenge with sacrifice and with fortitude. I wonder what we’ll do about this one.” (Orion )