The first species extinction directly tied to global warming was reported as scientists declared the Aldaba banded snail extinct. The Aldaba snail dwelled on the Seychelles Islands in the Indian Ocean, and the last sighting of this creature with its conspicuous, purple-colored shell dates back to 1997.

Scientists report that longer and warmer summers are to blame for the deaths of all juvenile snails, and attribute the changing climate to global warming. "I think what we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg in terms of extinction events. I expect that we're going to be seeing more stories like this," says scientist Debbie Debinski of Iowa State University.

There may be other species that have gone extinct because of climate change but this is the first confirmed extinction. Several species of frogs for example, known to be under climate related stresses, have been in steep decline in recent years and have not been seen recently.

These warming trends and their attendant consequences on wildlife populations are what have been predicted by global warming models. Up to one third of species on the planet are predicted to go extinct due to the effects of global warming unless we act now to reduce emissions and put our country and the world on an energy path that makes more sense for everyone.

Do you want to explain to your children (or your nieces, or the kids on your block) what could happen to one third of the creatures on the planet we’re going to leave them if we don’t act? Do you want to explain to them one day why there used to be polar bears?

If you are concerned about the polar bear, walrus, and other wildlife of the Great North, An Arctic Tale is a must-see movie. Released last week in movie theaters, this wildlife adventure shows how these magnificent creatures are trying to survive a world that is quickly changing due to global warming.

National Wildlife Federation is one of four organizations that have been selected to participate in the Arctic Fund established by Paramount and will receive a portion of the revenue from this film. Visit their website at www.arctictalemovie.com

These may be the dog days of summer, but the U.S. Congress has actually been making some real progress worth mentioning. For the second time this summer, political leaders in Washington, DC have listened to the people and passed energy legislation that includes measures to break our addiction to fossil fuels. Could comprehensive global warming legislation be next? Let’s hope so.

Passage of the House Energy Bill this weekend was an important step toward supporting the solutions necessary to confront global warming. The House Energy Bill requires that by the year 2020, 15 percent of electricity be generated using renewable energy sources.

Combined with the recent passage of a Senate Energy Bill that includes fuel economy improvements, we have the makings of some significant clean energy solutions. The next step is for the House and Senate to come together in conference after the August recess and combine these efforts into a bill worthy of becoming law.

Like breaking any addiction, it takes many steps to break the addiction to fossil fuels. And it takes courage. The House Energy Bill is one important step. Now it’s time for Congress to respond head-on to public demand and pass meaningful global warming legislation that includes a cap and trade system, and wildlife funding to help wildlife survive the consequences of global warming.

Ice is melting at an alarming pace all over the world. Nowhere is it more obvious than at head of the Jakobshavn Fjord near the town of Ilulissat on the west coast of Greenland. Ilulissat, a fishing village with 500 fishing boats, 5,000 people and nearly as many pure-bred Huskies, has experienced a 9 degree F rise in average temperature over the past two decades.

Dog sledding on Disco Bay, once the primary means of winter travel, is ending because waters are failing to freeze, even during the winter. Icebergs, in unprecedented numbers, are calving from nearby glaciers. Roaring muddy waters rush from the base of crumbling glaciers feeding the fjords and eventually the ocean.

Massive icebergs are calving off of the face of the Jakobshavn glacial "tongue" at a rate of about 6 feet per hour. The ice sloughs off of the 7 mile-wide glacier and plunges 100 feet into the fjord. Elsewhere, thunderous cracks rattle massive icebergs that are jammed among ice debris, as they push and shove each other along a clogged fjord at a flow rate of 5 miles per hour. This single glacier is responsible for 20 percent of Greenland’s melt-water flowing into the ocean.

Greenland’s vast, undulating icescapes have been warming rapidly, particularly in the south where they are causing about 4 percent of the annual sea-level rise worldwide. The "accretion zone," a vast area at Greenland’s margins where ice is melting faster than it is being replaced, has expanded dramatically, particularly in southern Greenland in the past ten years. According to the recent Arctic Climate Impact Assessment led by Dr. Robert Corell and involving over 300 scientists, "Over the past two decades, the melt area on the Greenland ice sheet has increased on average by about 0.7 percent/year or about 16 percent from 1979 to 2002."

As the highly reflective ice surface melts, water drains toward low-lying depressions to form lakes on the glacial ice surfaces. The many, many newly-formed lakes on Greenland’s vast ice mass create what scientists call "positive feedbacks." I hate the term "positive feedback" because it confuses the public and policy makers by suggesting something positive is going on when in reality, it’s a very bad thing because newly formed lakes with their dark surfaces absorb about 80 percent of incoming sunlight while ice reflects about 90 percent of sunlight back into space. The "lake effect" thus amplifies the rate of ice melting—causing global warming to become much worse and happen much faster than previous Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports predicted.

Scientists know that these lakes accelerate melt, although on-going studies are currently assessing more accurately the rate of acceleration. One thing is clear: Early predictive models need to be revised upward because Greenland’s ice is melting much faster than expected. Greenland, the largest island on the planet, is a giant solar reflector but is gradually becoming an energy absorber.

Eventually, melt waters flow out of literally thousands of temporary lakes and spill over on to the icescape cutting vivid, aqua-blue channels of rushing water that flow along deeply-cut fractures until the water finds vertical cracks and drains through the massive ice formation to the bottom miles below. Large volumes of melt water now sitting under glaciers form a sheet flow of muddy water and fine sediments that move under the glaciers to nearby fjords.

All of this water below the glaciers reduces friction with the rocks below, allowing the glaciers to slide more quickly into the ocean. As Greenland’s highly lubricated glaciers move, they create dramatic ice quakes that range between 4.1 and 5.3 on the Richter Scale and show up on seismic measuring devices all over the world. The number of large ice quakes doubled in the 1990s and redoubled since 2000. One glacial movement got my attention, as a 6 cubic-mile block of ice slid 42 feet in less than a minute. Because no one can yet accurately predict this "non-linear" ice breakup, the most recent IPCC report did not account for the current acceleration in melting.

Many believe that the ice on Greenland will only melt faster when the ice mass floating on the Arctic completely disappears in the summer months. This catastrophic event is now predicted to happen sometime between 2020 and 2040. The last time in the ancient past when the Arctic ice completely disappeared, three-quarters of Greenland eventually melted. If that happened again, sea levels would eventually be over 14 feet higher. That’s more than enough to flood all beaches, coastal wetland habitats, and flood out millions of people living in coastal communities and cities across the planet.

What is now happening in Greenland should be an emergency alarm for every one of us. By emitting millions of tons of carbon pollution day-by-day, we are altering the world’s coastal maps, wrecking critical wildlife habitat and threatening the very fabric of every coastal community. Millions upon millions of inhabitants around the world are at risk.

Most Americans know that global warming is happening but few understand that it is a pending crisis needing immediate action. We must demand sound energy policies now! Let’s create a safer energy future that keeps the ice on Greenland. After all, what happens in Greenland will not stay in Greenland.