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Message: Why You Should Care About Your CO2 Emissions If you are a polar bear or a penguin, the news so far this year is not good. First, this summer may be the first time in recorded history that the Arctic’s polar ice cap melts. Not concerned about something so far away from your downtown condo? Don’t be too smug. These kinds of environmental changes will impact you no matter where you may live—you drink water, don’t you? Watch this video and you may be convinced high gas prices are a good thing if they keep another Hummer off the road. Then there is the Antarctic. In a recent academic study from Australia, researchers speculate that a massive rise in the oceans’ water levels could be just a few years away: Dr Bradley Opdyke, a paleoceanographer from the Australia National University (ANU) believes the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) could partially collapse within 20 years, resulting in a dramatic jump in sea levels. His talk on glacial cycles and the WAIS was presented earlier this month at the Imagining the real: life on a greenhouse earth conference held in Canberra. “The 900-pound gorilla hiding in the closet is Antarctica. We have evidence that it is not a stable beast,” Opdyke says. He says the WAIS is inherently unstable, and the current rate of sea level rise is placing it at risk. “It is pinned on the spines of a few mountains, with ice sheets draped off them,” Opdyke says. “If sea level rise unpins these sheets, it is plausible that there will be dramatic ice collapse in the West Antarctic." Opdyke goes on to say that such a collapse could take place in weeks rather than decades. Now, aren’t you glad you support the local Sierra Club and your family has reduced its carbon emissions? What about your business? Is it part of the old economy—you know, the one that measures success by the amount of polar ice it melts—or is it embracing the future of green? www.corporateknightsforum.com