Mankind to blame for global warming say scientists
PARIS (Reuters) - The world's top climate scientists said on Friday global warming was man-made, spurring calls for urgent government action to prevent severe and irreversible damage from rising temperatures.
The United Nations panel, which groups 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more droughts, heatwaves, rains and a slow gain in sea levels that could last for more than 1,000 years.
[...]
A 21-page summary of IPCC findings for policy makers outlines wrenching change such as a possible melting of Arctic sea ice in summers by 2100 and says it is "more likely than not" that greenhouse gases have made tropical cyclones more intense.
The report predicts a "best estimate" that temperatures would rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) in the 21st century, within a likely range from 1.1 to 6.4 Celsius.
Temperatures rose 0.7 degrees in the 20th century and the 10 hottest years since records began in the 1850s have been since 1994.
Well, maybe now the Bush administration will take global warming seriously.
The head of the U.S. delegation defended Bush's policies that brake the rise of emissions rather than cap them.
Or maybe not.
Bush pulled out of Kyoto, saying caps would harm the economy and that Kyoto should include developing nations.
Harm the economy? Harm the economy?! Didn't Hurricane Katrina harm the economy?!
Tell me, Mr. Bush, what will hurt the economy more, capping CO2 emissions and swithching to green energy or the New York Stock Exchange becoming an aquarium?
The report projects a rise in sea levels of between 18 and 59 centimetres (7 and 23 inches) in the 21st century -- and said bigger gains could not be ruled out if ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland thaw.
These projections are far enough in the future that perhaps Bush feels he won't be around to suffer the consequences of his own inaction, but then he still goes crazy over the Social Security issue which will similarly have no effect on him thanks to the silver spoon he has had in his mouth since day one.
(As an aside to the Social Security issue, the reason S.S. and many other government programs have financial issues is largely because of Bush's dual and dueling money pits called "tax cuts for the rich" and "war in Iraq". It is typical for Bush to be the reason why our government has a problem, blame the problem on government, and say that we need to trust him to fix the government that was under his control when the problem was created. That is the logic of a lunatic.)
Speaking of lunatic logic, here is an article about the American Enterprise Institute's response to the UN report:
US thinktank offering cash to dispute UN climate panel: report
A right-wing American thinktank is offering 10,000 dollars (7,700 euros) to scientists and economists to dispute a climate change report set to be released by the UN's top scientific panel, media reported.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), which receives funding from oil giant ExxonMobil according to the Guardian, sent letters to scientists in the United States, Britain and elsewhere offering the payments in exchange for articles emphasising the shortcoming of the UN's report.
[...]
Kenneth Green, the AEI visiting scholar who sent the letters, confirmed to The Guardian that the thinktank had approached scientists and analysts to pen essays that would be compiled into an independent review of the IPCC's report.
Independent? Ha ha ha! This guy is hilarious!
The IPCC's report is already independent, AEI and ExxonMobil are anything but independent, and Green's suggestion otherwise is nothing but laughable.
Green's stand-up routine continues:
"Right now, the whole debate is polarized," Green was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
"One group says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for intelligent policy."
Ha ha ha! Man, this guy could be the next Seinfeld. NBC should look into whether this guy already has a development deal with another network.
First off, this guy claims there's some "group" out there calling those who want to take action "alarmist" as if AEI, the "think"tank he works for, isn't that "group".
Second, he does not think the approach of these groups (AEI being one of them) has "a lot of utility for intelligent policy," but he apparently does think AEI's approach of PAYING PEOPLE TO LIE has a lot of utility for intelligent policy. Ridiculous.
Let's talk about intelligent policy. Intelligent policy is seeking evidence and responding to the facts. It is absurd that we still have to put up with deniers who want us to do otherwise and hold us back with their unintelligent policies.
We already have people who deny the Holocaust and people who deny that we landed on the Moon despite all supporting evidence based on fact. Now we have people who want to deny global warming despite supporting evidence based on fact.
They are such a small minority, but they are a powerful minority. They are powerful enough to sow doubt about global warming in the public and reap the inaction that will lead to disaster. They do the same with pollution, extinction, poverty, and health care. For example, here is a disturbing story of how doubts about pollution lead to inaction and, subsequently, disaster:
Oily, smelly snow falls over Siberian region
MOSCOW — Russian emergency workers have flown to a Siberian region where smelly and multicoloured snow fell earlier this week covering about 100 square kilometres, officials said Friday.
The snow, which fell Wednesday afternoon, was yellow, green and orange and had an oily texture and unpleasant smell, the Emergency Situations Ministry said.
Officials in the Omsk region, about 2,250 kilometres east of Moscow, had warned local residents not to use the snow for drinking or other purposes, and to keep domestic animals from it, the ministry said.
Right now, there are no explanations for the snow nor indications of what harm it might do to the environment. The point I want to make is that the evidence for pollution and global warming is all around us. Pollution is a real problem. Global warming is a real problem. We must change our ways and take care of our planet. The debate on environmentalism is over. The environmentalists have won despite what the polluters, ExxonMobil, or their paid thinkers think, and regardless, we are out of time for debate.
The time for action is now. The time for action was ten years ago. The longer we wait, the more desperate our situation becomes.
We must act now before we are unable to act.
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