The Great Russian Heatwave of 2010 is rapidly becoming one of the deadliest weather crises of our time. It might also be a preview of a future, warmer, planet. But you'd barely know it from watching US media coverage.

Noted climatologist Michael Mann says "The record heat waves we're seeing this summer aren't simply random events in isolation. They are embedded in the warmest 6 month period the globe has seen in the instrumental record spanning the past 150 years. And a wealth of paleoclimate evidence suggests that the past few decades are the warmest period in at least a thousand years." Mann also said, "Some argue the cause could be natural. But when we put the natural factors only into the climate models, they show that the climate should have cooled in recent decades. We can only explain the dramatic warming that we've seen from the increased accumulation of greenhouse gases due to human activity."

Dr. Jeff Masters from the WeatherUnderground agrees and adds, "Global warming 'loads the dice' in favor of extreme heat events. But with the planet experiencing its warmest 6-month period in recorded history, it's now possible to roll a thirteen, when it used to be possible to roll no higher than a twelve."

August is a crazy month for Masters. Tropical storm forecasts and tracking keep him up regularly past midnight. But he's been burning the candle at both ends this year, publishing superb analysis on the disaster in Russia and framing it in terms that anyone can understand. "The great heat wave and drought of 1988 in the Midwest U.S. was far less intense than the 2010 Russian heat wave, yet was the second costliest natural disaster in U.S. history at $70 billion. The 1988 heat wave killed 5,000 - 10,000 Americans. If the 2010 Russian heat wave hit the U.S. next year, the damage would probably surpass the $125 billion price tag of Hurricane Katrina as the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history. The likely death toll of 10,000 - 20,000 would also make it the deadliest." Masters added, "The damage to Russian agriculture will be in the tens of billions of dollars and could cost tens of thousands of lives."

Let that last graf sink in. Science writers often focus on the environmental impacts and physical tipping points of climate change. But there are socio-economic tipping points as well, and it doesn't take decades of warming to trigger them. A series of heat waves like the one plaguing Russia could have immediate economic repercussions long before glaciers melt or sea levels rise. Modern civilization has never been forced to adapt to rapid global changes like this. Seven billion people are now dependent on a fragile, overly stressed agricultural and distribution infrastructure, built on the assumption that climate conditions will remain the same. Rapid climate change violates that assumption and introduces the ingredients for famine, economic collapse, political upheaval, and even war in its place.