EB: The April 3 TIME magazine has a special issue on climate change. Many of the articles are now online.

Table of Contents

Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever...
More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought...
Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities...
By Any Measure, Earth Is At ...
The Tipping Point

The climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame. Why the crisis hit so soon--and what we can do about it
By Jeffrey Kluger

No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.

How China and India could save the planet--or destroy it
By Bryan Walsh

If everyone lived like the average Chinese or Indian, you wouldn't be reading about global warming. On a per capita basis, China and India emit far less greenhouse gas than energy-efficient Japan, environmentally scrupulous Sweden--and especially the gas-guzzling U.S. (The average American is responsible for 20 times as much CO2 emission annually as the average Indian.) There's only one problem: 2.4 billion people live in China and India, a great many of whom aspire to an American-style energy-intensive life. And thanks to the breakneck growth of the two countries' economies, they just might get there--with potentially disastrous results for the world's climate.

Global warming is already disrupting the biological world, pushing many species to the brink of extinction and turning others into runaway pests. But the worst is yet to come
By David Bjerklie

QUIVER TREE This striking giant aloe was given its name by the San people of southern Africa, who use the tree's hollow branches as quivers for their arrows. Scientists have discovered that quiver trees are starting to die off in parts of their traditional range. The species might be in the early stages of moving southward, trying to escape rising temperatures closer to the equator.

...What troubles scientists especially is that if we are only in the early stages of warming, all these lost and endangered animals might be just the first of many to go. One study estimates that more than a million species worldwide could be driven to extinction by the year 2050.

Q&A: NASA's chief climate scientist, who charged that his views on global warming were being squelched, says we're getting close to a tipping point

Earlier this year, James Hansen, NASA's chief climate scientist, made headlines when he accused the administration of muzzling him when he tried to speak out about global warming. Hansen, director of the space agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was one of the earliest researchers to sound the climate change alarm. He alleges that White House appointees in NASA limited his access to the press and ordered him to remove web postingss that contradicted the President's positions. The White House took a PR bruising when the charges went public and Hansen's profile has since been higher than ever. He recently spoke to TIME about both the science and the politics of the global warming crisis.

The debate over whether Earth is warming up is over. Now we're learning that climate disruptions feed off one another in accelerating spirals of destruction. Scientists fear we may be approaching the point of no return. (Subscriber only)

Most people think the earth is getting warmer, but they're split on whether humans are the cause.

They saw which way the wind was blowing and set out to save the world

You don't have to wait for Washington to tell you to reduce emissions. You can follow the lead of forward-thinking governments, retailers, artists and even a utility company

Global warming is happening, and the proof is all around us

Expect more risk of heatstrokes, asthma, allergies and infectious disease

HSBC is one banking behemoth that wants to be carbon neutral