In Alaska and northern Canada, the once-permanently frozen subsoil known as permafrost, which many native settlements rest upon, is now melting due to warming air and ocean temperatures. And sea ice that would normally protect coastal villages is forming later in the year, allowing fall storms to erode the shoreline.

A new report entitled “Whales in hot water?” says whales, dolphins and porpoises (cetaceans) face increasing threats from global warming as rising sea temperatures destroy polar habitats and undermine their food sources.

Global emissions of carbon dioxide are growing at a faster clip than the highest rates used in recent key UN reports. From 2000 to 2004, CO2 emissions rates almost tripled to 3 percent a year – higher than any rate used in emissions scenarios for the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded today that it would cost .12% of the world's domestic product to substantially reduce our collective greenhouse gas emissions.

GDP of the world economy: US$60 trillion

.12% of $60 trillion: $70 billion

Total population of the earth: 6.5 billion

Cost per person to significantly reduce heat-trapping gas worldwide: $10 a year

Cost of saving the planet from droughts, famine, mass flooding, species extinction and rising sea levels: priceless.

Note: I've revised the calculations here. From $110 to $10 per person.

Here's the math: $60 trillion/.0012/6.5 billion = 10 (rounded figures)

ThinkProgress has a great piece today outlining the Republican (and their sympathetic media) attempts to frame greenhouse gas emission reduction strategies as devastating to the US economy.