Our Grandchildren and their inflatable rafts

President Bush often rhetorically postulates that our grandchildren's main preoccupation will be whether we "stood strong" in Iraq.

I tend to think they might have other questions for us...

Rising sea levels and melting polar ice-sheets are at upper limits of projections, leaving some human population centers already unable to cope, top world scientists say as they analyze latest satellite data.....

"Observations are in the very upper edge of the projections," leading Australian marine scientist John Church told Reuters.

"I feel that we're getting uncomfortably close to threshold."

Past this level, parts of the Antarctic and Greenland would approach a virtually irreversible melting that would produce sea level rises of meters, he said.

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