We are in – right now – the hottest decade in at least the last two thousand years. This year has been one for the record books for carbon dioxide, gas prices, wildfires, melting glaciers and, ironically, polar tourism. 2008 is on track to be warmer than the entire decade of the 1990s.

Host Mike Tidwell discusses the year in review with Andrew Revkin, reporter for the New York Times and author of the Times’ environment blog – Dot Earth and with Joe Romm, the author of the blog Climate Progress and a senior fellow at The Center for American Progress.

Then we dive even deeper into the automaker’s bailout with Matt Pawa, the lead lawyer representing the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club in their defense of states enacting strict auto emission standards.

Then we get a first-hand account of what it was like to stand on the desk of the very first commercial ship to sail through the ice-free Northwest Passage. Waguih Rayes is general manager of the Arctic division of the shipping company – Group Desgagnes.

Download this edition of Earthbeat.

Image used courtesy of Waguih Rayes, all rights reserved.