The past is prologue. Our understanding of how CO2 levels relate to global temperature came out of 19th-century scientists studying the newly discovered Ice Age. In the generations since, our studies of how the last Ice Age ended showed us monstrous flooding as vast bodies of meltwater were released by crumbling walls of ice to rush across the planet carving out huge rivers, and global sea levels rose hundreds of feet in a matter of a couple centuries.

The past is prologue, and the ice is melting. The flood is coming, and we are not prepared.

Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year, a team of 80 scientists reported Wednesday.The melt rate has tripled in the past decade, the study concluded. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they had hoped.

Unfortunately, the Washington post is still clinging to the idea that”nations have a short window — perhaps no more than a decade — to cut greenhouse-gas emissions if they hope to avert some of the worst consequences of climate change.” The “one decade to act” talking point was a good try in a world committed to ignoring the problem, but it hasn’t been an accurate description for a long time. “10 years left” came and went 10-20 years ago. Studies like this no longer warn us about what could happen, they are telling us what will happen.

The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer wall.

Ištar shrieked like a woman in childbirth,
the sweet-voiced Mistress of the Gods wailed:
‘The olden days have alas turned to clay,
because I said evil things in the Assembly of the Gods!
How could I say evil things in the Assembly of the Gods,
ordering a catastrophe to destroy my people?
No sooner have I given birth to my dear people
than they fill the sea like so many fish!’

The gods -those of the Anunnaki- were weeping with her,
the gods humbly sat weeping, sobbing with grief,
their lips burning, parched with thirst.
Six days and seven nights
came the wind and flood,
the storm flattening the land.

When the seventh day arrived,
the storm was pounding.
She who had been struggling with itself like a woman writhing in labor,
the sea, calmed; the whirlwind fell still; the flood stopped.

I looked around all day long – quiet had set in
and all the human beings had turned to clay!
The terrain was as flat as a roof.

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