Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

It's almost biblical in proportion. Fire. Floods. Disease. Death. Only it isn't four horsemen that are bringing these plagues. It is three atoms - one carbon and two oxygen - CO2:

In a report released by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) , scientists for the first time linked changes being observed in nature on every continent and in most oceans to rising temperatures from greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, emitted by power plants, factories, and cars.

If emissions are not reduced, the panel warned, 20 percent to 30 percent of plant and animal species could face increased risk of extinction, and rising temperatures could cause widespread human suffering from more frequent droughts, floods, and outbreaks of disease.

People apparently aren't getting the message, so the second report on climate change by the IPCC applies a few more scare tactics and screams a little louder. And we are told that this is the watered-down version. Meaning that the news is actually much, much worse.

It's ok though, because we can fix it. It will just cost a little bit really:

Without action to curb carbon emissions, man's livable habitat will shrink starkly, said Stephen Schneider, a Stanford scientist who was one of the authors. "Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to be on high mountains with glaciers melting.

"We can fix this" by investing a small part of the world's economic growth rate, Schneider said. "It's trillions of dollars, but it's a very trivial thing."

Just trillions of dollars.Trivial really. No point in arguing with these conclusions. And maybe, just maybe, in a few decades we'll know if we have solved the problem. Or if there really ever was one. Of course these folks won't be around then.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to put on my coat on this fine spring morning in April and go outside to shovel the snow off of my driveway.