Warming 'increasingly disruptive' across US - report

The third National Climate Assessment, released by the White House, says the number and strength of extreme weather events have increased over the past 50 years.
Infrastructure is being damaged by sea level rise, downpours and extreme heat.
The report says these impacts are likely to worsen in the coming decades.
Coming hot on the heels of the trio of reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), the assessment re-iterates the finding that climate change is real, and "driven primarily by human activity".

A key element driving this conclusion is the observed evidence on extreme weather events such as heavy downpours of rain.
"There have been episodes of temperatures in urban areas that are amplified by the heat island effect, where it just never recovers over the night and that dramatically affects humans," said Prof Yohe.
"It's impossible for the night to cool the earth."
The report also highlights the well-documented threats from wildfires in the West and how warming could, ultimately, cut agricultural productivity.
As well as food security, the report warns that millions of people and properties are at risk from rising seas. Five million people live in areas that are 1.2 metres above the local high-tide level.
The assessment warns that current efforts to implement emissions cuts and to adapt to changes are "insufficient to avoid increasingly negative social, environmental, and economic consequences".
The report's authors believe that it provides crucial ammunition for President Obama as he looks to regulate US emissions.
Last year the President unveiled his Climate Action Plan that sets new rules on carbon emissions from power plants. However, the scientists are pessimistic that the assessment will have much of an impact in Congress.

"One of the few places in the US where it looks like climate change is a fifty-fifty proposition is in the Congressional record," said Prof Yohe.
"That is problematic."

Campaigners have endorsed the report and are calling for swift action.
"Our leading scientists send a stark message: Climate change is already seriously disrupting our lives, hurting our health and damaging our economy," said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"If we don't slam the brakes on the carbon pollution driving climate change, we're dooming ourselves and our children to more intense heat waves, destructive floods and storms, and surging sea levels."

 What is up with Congress? What will it take to convince them that the country and world are in a mega crisis situation of dire environmental, economic, and social problems?