Predictable, according to mountains of evidence from the most dispassionate scientists in the world, who can hardly believe what they're seeing. Unpredictable, because the interconnecting systems are beyond our ability to accurately model.

Many feedback systems are at play: in the human systems, we have China building one coal-fed power plant every week, and an increasing desire within India (one+ billion), Indonesia (one+ billion), and Africa (one+ billion), and more for an increasingly energy-intensive lifestyle -- not unlike the US experience. This demand is most cheaply met by treating the atmosphere as an open sewer; rapid change is quite costly to the huge financial systems currently in power.

In the natural systems, other feedback systems look equally bleak. The former permafrost now melting in Siberia is releasing gigantic amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. The increasing openness of the Arctic waters means less reflection, and more absorption, of solar heat. The same is true of land, as the glaciers retreat. New evidence indicates that many plants, as the temperature rises, begin to release CO₂ instead of absorbing it. The interconnected, mutually exacerbating systems make this apocalypse exceedingly difficult to halt, and merely "very difficult" to slow down.

We are projecting, over the next ten years, using mostly pessimistic predictions, the following scenario:

• Ocean levels and, more importantly, storm surges will rise two feet and seven feet, respectively
• Significant economic disruption on industries and economies based in coastal areas will affect worldwide economies (as ports are affected by the rising tides)
• The multitude of direct impacts on coastal residents (home values, insurance costs, transportation costs, etc.) will create new kinds of economic refugees -- some "telecommuting" remotely, others having to just up and leave
• Coastal infrastructure (sewer systems, bridges, roads, shipping systems, and more) will be pressured, requiring significant financial outlay and consequent pass-on to consumer prices and taxes
• Insurance and reinsurance industries recalibrate, creating great economic turmoil, and greater final costs to both businesses and consumers
• New opportunities will be created by the disruptions, and there will be sufficient global capital to provide both seed capital and development capital for energy, infrastructure, and societal realignment
• Energy will continue to be expensive, but availability will not drop off precipitously for the 10 year period in question
• Large swathes of farmland, especially in the Midwest, China, and Russia, not to mention Africa and South America, will be affected by drought, heat, and/or decreases in aquifir replenishment through lower snow- and -rainfall, causing significant economic disruption and much higher food prices, resulting in famine in many areas of the developing world
• Al-Qaeda and the "war on terrorism" in general are recognized as functionally meaningless, compared to the real crisis
• The internet, and communications technologies, will continue to grow and prosper, as telecommuting and entertainment help us to forget (or watch incessently) the predictable and unpredictable chaos going on around the world.