Oh my.

Seasoned polar scientists believe the chances of a totally ice free North Pole this summer are greater than 50:50 because the normally thick ice formed over many years at the Pole has been blown away and replaced by huge swathes of thinner ice formed over a single year.

This one-year ice is highly vulnerable to melting during the summer months and satellite data coming in over recent weeks shows that the rate of melting is faster than last year, when there was an all-time record loss of summer sea ice at the Arctic.

Meanwhile….

North Korea handed over a long-delayed account of its nuclear activities on Thursday, prompting a still-wary U.S. President George W. Bush to ease some sanctions on a country he once branded part of an “axis of evil.”
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Bush also welcomed an announcement by North Korea that it would blow up the cooling tower at Yongbyon, its main nuclear complex. In an unprecedented move, North Korea has invited Western media to record the event.
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China, the closest Pyongyang has to an ally, hosted talks that last year secured a deal offering North Korea energy, aid and diplomatic incentives in return for disabling its main nuclear facility and unveiling past nuclear activities.

And of course, there’s the fact that everyone across the world is paying more for food.

The world’s food crisis is expected to last for another five years, but expensive food is here to stay, Thailand’s National Food Institute predicts. An estimated 805.4 million people in the world are still living below the standard of daily food intake, said the institute’s director, Yuthasak Supasorn.

”The world is still facing a food crisis situation that is expected to last for another three to five years,” Mr Yuthasak said at a seminar on global opportunities for small and medium-sized food producers in Thailand.

”Expensive food prices will remain even after the crisis is over.”

As long as fuel prices increase, Mr Yuthasak said food prices would also be on the rise as fuel was involved in every step of food production.

There is a convergence of environmental, diplomatic and humanitarian issues that have one common contributing factor — our unrestrained use of polluting and increasingly expensive sources of energy. Carbon is melting the planet. Carbon-based energy — or the lack of it — pushes unstable regimes toward dangerous technologies. And carbon is driving millions toward hunger.

A transition to carbon-free energy will require large investments. But every day brings more evidence that a change sooner rather than later will save countless dollars, immeasurable hardship and many lives.

The UK seems to get it.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the government will encourage utilities to build 7,000 wind turbines for generating electricity, part of a program to cut pollution and reduce Britain’s dependence on fossil fuels.

It will be at least six months before we know if America is prepared to follow suit. But if current food and fuel price trends continue, the timeline may shift dramatically toward quick action to ease human hardship and simultaneously address the climate crisis.