(Photo by Bill Roth/ADN)

President Obama – who graduated Columbia University with a degree in political science – became an environmental and ecological expert Monday night in time to decry America’s contributions to global warming and the alleged melting of Arctic ice caps at this year’s GLACIER Conference, predicting a dire future for humanity.

During the GLACIER event, which stands for Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience, Obama blamed the recent rash of wildfires sweeping parts of Washington State on global warming, insisting that “climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it.”

Overall, the speech painted a fairly doom-and-gloom outlook for America and the rest of the world. So if you’re a Doomsday Prepper, here are a few excerpts from the president's speech explaining the climate-related disasters heading to a town near you:

Your house might slide off into the ocean…

Reduced sea levels leaves villages unprotected from floods and storm surges. Some are in imminent danger; some will have to relocate entirely.

…or it might be engulfed in flames.

Alaska’s fire season is now more than a month longer than it was in 1950. At one point this summer, more than 300 wildfires were burning at once. Southeast of here, in our Pacific Northwest, even the rainforest is on fire…this is a threat to many communities.

And if it doesn’t, it will definitely get sucked into a sinkhole.

Thawing permafrost destabilizes the earth on which 100,000 Alaskans live, threatening homes, damaging transportation and energy infrastructure, which could cost billions of dollars to fix.

Your city will either look like Atlantis or something out of the zombie apocalypse.

...we will condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair: Submerged countries. Abandoned cities.

You might run out of fresh salmon en croûte.

Warmer, more acidic oceans and rivers, and the migration of entire species, threatens the livelihoods of indigenous peoples, and local economies dependent on fishing and tourism.

Or just food, in general.

Climate change is already disrupting our agriculture and ecosystems.

You may simultaneously die of thirst and drown, all at the same time.

Entire nations will find themselves under severe, severe problems. More drought; more floods; rising sea level…

You might have to begin training for the Hunger Games.

…more refugees; more scarcity; more conflict.

And if the famine, flood, fire and fighting doesn’t get you, the fumes definitely will.

Consider, as well, that many of the fires burning today are actually burning through the permafrost in the Arctic. So this permafrost stores massive amounts of carbon. When the permafrost is no longer permanent, when it thaws or burns, these gases are released into our atmosphere over time, and that could mean that the Arctic may become a new source of emissions that further accelerates global warming.

After all, we’re running out of time.

On this issue, of all issues, there is such a thing as being too late. That moment is almost upon us.



Perhaps the president got some of his research from the crew of the Canadian CCGS Amundsen during their four-month global warming expedition -- you know, before they had to bail on their mission due to ships getting stuck in ice.