In Decades Since Climate Talks Began, World Has Gotten Hotter, Weirder

"WASHINGTON — In the more than two decades since world leaders first got together to try to solve global warming, life on Earth has changed, not just the climate. It's gotten hotter, more polluted with heat-trapping gases, more crowded and just downright wilder.

The numbers are stark. Carbon dioxide emissions: up 60 percent. Global temperature: up six-tenths of a degree. Population: up 1.7 billion people. Sea level: up 3 inches. U.S. extreme weather: up 30 percent. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica: down 4.9 trillion tons of ice.

'Simply put, we are rapidly remaking the planet and beginning to suffer the consequences,' says Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University."

Seth Borenstein reports for the Associated Press December 2, 2014.