The signing of the Paris Climate accord is a major political achievement.  However, the agreed-upon carbon gas controls are insufficient to constrain the global average temperature rise to less than 2C (3.6F).  Scientists at the December American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco say that even this limit will result in major environmental changes in all regions of Earth, affecting life-support and economic systems in many negative ways.  With respect to the Arctic, major changes are irreversibly underway: reduction of ocean ice, rapid now frequent and very disruptive to Arctic life and biota and huge flows of tropical air in the Arctic.  These, in turn, lead to massive, sustained flows of very cold air into  sub-polar regions, including northern Europe and North American.  Earth is now warming faster than at any time in its history.and many secondary effects are becoming more visible.  Sea level predictions now give more rapid melting of the Greenland and Antarctic icepacks with higher ocean levels now predicted sooner than previously estimated.  Many subsidiary studies are now underway to determine impacts upon food, fresh water, desertification, spread of disease and enhancement of storm damage.  Yet, in spite of this, the U.S. political right and major global energy producers continue to deny the reality of the changes in climate being a result of the huge volumes of carbon dioxide and methane released from human activities into Earth’s atmosphere.