I was hoping that my absence would give Illinois and Midwest newspapers the opportunity to make the latest news from the IPCC a little more close to home. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times got a scoop on the key news, which is that poor nations are, inexplicably, in for an even worse time in the century to come*. A few other links to general coverage, the impacts to natural wonders, and just on the general bleakness of the report.
Sadly, however, the stories on local impacts haven't really started yet. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch seems to have the only news on Illinois impacts: a longer growing season to start, with less rain and even more heat in the further future. More heavy storms rather than gentle rain. My go-to document on Illinois impacts is the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate Change in Illinois, and that's looking pretty solid: Illinois will get Oklahomazized. (According to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin will get Arkansized.)
All is not bad news, however. For one, the "what do we do?" section of the IPCC report is still yet-to-be-released--expect it in the fall. For another, China has agreed to join negotiations for the follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, governing what to do after 2012. That is big, important news, and hopefully it'll finally bring the US to an international commitment.
* What Revkin's piece details is disturbing enough, but a little bit of context makes it clear that climate is more than just the weather. Mike Davis's book, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World (also available in our library!), makes clear the ways that economic and imperial power work opportunistically in times of climate strife to prolong the devastation of droughts and floods. Those opportunities will surely abound in the wake of global warming driven catastrophes.