tipping point?

Is it just me, or does it seem like climate efforts in the U.S. have really picked up serious momentum recently? Just in the last few days, Stevens and Murkowski got behind a big emissions reduction bill on the federal level, Live Earth was global news, and now Florida is doing some dramatic stuff. States in the west and east are both coordinating regional emissions reduction plans in lack of federal leadership, with the western states set to announce a goal in the next few weeks.
The NY Times had stories today on Florida's efforts and a new soup-to-nuts study of potential impacts in New York State and the Northeast, my home.

Without reductions in emissions, sea levels could rise, inundating coastal areas on southern Long Island and pushing water into parts of Lower Manhattan, flooding the financial district and swamping the subways, making them inoperable. Atlantic City could be flooded every other year by late century.

. . . Long Island lobsters would disappear or move to cooler waters up north. Without a hard frost to set buds, New York apple trees would not produce as much fruit as before. Under stress from invasive species, maple, beech and birch trees could disappear from certain regions of the state, including the Adirondacks.

And since it would often be hotter than dairy cows like, milk production could decline by 15 percent or more in late summer months.

Click here for the whole thing.