Only about a decade ago, global warming was just a hypothesis . However, now it is being recognized as leading to climate change and extreme weather conditions. In recent years, climate observations (e.g., warmer summers, colder winters, and more frequent extreme weather events) indicate that the effects of climate change events are apparently having an increasing impact on society .

During the sweltering summer of 2003, which was the hottest summer in the last 500 years , over 35,000 people died across Europe from heat-related causes . In the UK, an outdoor air temperature of 38°C was recorded, and the UK Department of Health predicted that a 9-day heat wave might lead to over 3000 immediate heat-related deaths . In the Netherlands, a maximum outdoor temperature of 35°C was registered, and between 1400 and 2200 heat-related deaths occurred during that summer. Although there is only limited and indirect epidemiological evidence concerning the conditions of indoor temperature exposure that give rise to adverse health effects , it is reasonable to assume that the heat-related illness and death cases mentioned above resulted not only from unusually high peak outdoor temperatures and a reduction in the diurnal temperature swing, but also from a failure of buildings to successfully mitigate the external environment .

The effects of the resulting “climate change” are uneven and can even produce localized cooling (if warm currents change direction). The climate change may also initiate positive feedback in which the initial impact is further enhanced by its own effects, for example if melting ice reduces the reflective properties of white surfaces (the “albedo” effect) or if melting tundra releases frozen methane, leading to further warming. Debate continues about which manifestations are due to long-term climate change and which to normal climate variability.

Global warming involves an unprecedented speeding up of the rate of change in natural processes, which now converges with the (previously much faster) rate of change in human societies, leading to a crisis of adaptation. Most authoritative scientific bodies predict that on present trends a point of no return could come within ten years, and that the world needs to cut emissions by 50 percent by mid twenty-first century.

In 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nation’s scientific panel on climate change, had predicted that Antarctica would not contribute significantly to sea level rise this century. The massive west Antarctic ice sheet was assumed to be stable. However, in June 2005 a British Antarctic survey reported measurements of the glaciers on this ice sheet shrinking. In October 2005 glaciologists reported that the edges of the Antarctic ice sheets were crumbling at an unprecedented rate and, in one area, glaciers were discharging ice three times faster than a decade earlier.

The cone is used as the main object, the ice cream ball on the top is replaced by the earth, and the polar bear is next to the earth.