Notes on "Too Hot to Handle."

The meeting in Copenhagen is the most important meeting on the climate since the 1997 Kyoto treaty meetings.
Many developing countries feel that if developed countries got rich by essentially burning coal, they shouldn't be penalized for doing the same.
Scientists have said that the number to aim for is 350 ppm (parts per million CO2.) Right now it is around 387, and Copenhagen is thinking of making sure it doesn't go over 450. Anything above 450 has been said to have changes on Earth that could render civilization as it is now unrecognizably different.
If oil was burned up till 2030, but after that there was absolutely no more oil being used, the forests and ocean could bring CO2 levels back down to manageable amounts.
There is a 50 percent chance the lake behind the Hoover Dam could dry up by 2021.
The nation The Maldives, which is all on islands, is looking to buy a new homeland as it is getting swallowed up by the sea.
Both Europe and the Americas are reasonably open to stricter environmental regulations, but that would only limit these countries to 450 ppm, and at even 387 ppm the arctic is melting at an alarming rate, 30 years before it was predicted to happen.