In 2007, the science of climate change achieved an unfortunate milestone: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reached a consensus position that human-induced global warming is already causing physical and biological impacts worldwide. The most recent scientific work demonstrates that changes in the climate system are occurring in the patterns that scientists had predicted, but the observed changes are happening earlier and faster than expected—again, unfortunate. Although serious reductions in manmade greenhouse gas emissions must be undertaken to reduce the extent of future impacts, climate change is already here and some impacts are clearly unavoidable. It is imperative, therefore, that we take stock of current and projected impacts so that we may begin to prepare for a future unlike the past we have known.

The wetlands provide services that are significant to the quality of life in the region, help sustain the national economy, and help protect life and property from climate extremes. Fisheries, recreation, and tourism, all thrive in the regions alongside urban development, agriculture, shipping, and the oil and gas industries. However, some regions of the world are experiencing some of the highest wetland loss rates, largely because of engineered modifications to regional watersheds and coastal landscapes. Such modifications increase the vulnerability of these wetlands to future climate variability and change. Sustainable restoration of wetlands requires planning for a more extreme future climate by returning critical water resources in the coastal landscapes to levels that existed before humans began modifying these regions three centuries ago. Wetlands support economic and ecological productivity as well as quality of life in many ways. Wetlands provide food, refuge, and nurseries for fish and shellfish, and they support the region’s large commercial and recreational fishing industries.

“A carbon offset or (carbon credits) is assumed to be a financial instrument which shows greenhouse gases emission reduction and helps us to take personal responsibility for the environmental consequences of our activities.”

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important greenhouse gas produced by human activities, primarily through the combustion of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and coal. As a result of tremendous world-wide consumption of such fossil fuels, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased over the past century which ultimately resulted in a global warming, the prime suspect in the greatest mass extinction of all time – wiping out 95% of all life forms on the planet.

We all are responsible to add CO2 and ultimately the global warming. Carbon footprint is a measure of the impact of our activities on the environment, and in particular on climate change. It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases we are producing in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating, transportation etc.

There is a new psychiatric malady reported in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. Dr. Joshua Wolf and Dr. Robert Sato of the Royal Children’s Hospital have documented a case of a “previously unreported phenomenon” which they are calling Climate Change Psychosis. Indeed, it is a name which describes a very serious mental malady.

The psychiatric case was described in the Journal as follows; “A 17-year-old man was referred to the inpatient unit at Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne with an eight-month history of depressed mood . He also had visions of apocalyptic events. The patient had developed the belief that, due to climate change, his own water consumption could lead within days to the deaths of millions of people through an exhaustion of water supplies.”