Climate scientists have long warned methane hydrates [search] stored in the Arctic ocean floor — hard clumps of frozen ice and methane at high pressure — could become unstable due to global heating. This would free massive amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere. Researchers have found preliminary alarming evidence that methane hydrate thawing has started [ark] in the Russian Artic and methane gas stores are being released. If confirmed, this positive feedback could increase the atmosphere’s methane [search] concentration by twenty times and has the potential to dramatically accelerate climate change. Again ecological science shows it is way past time for governments and individuals to commit to personal and social change sufficient to solve climate change and related global ecological crises.