Will the BushAdministration heedthis definite proof ofglobal warming?
Top Science Panel Says Global Warming ‘Unequivocal’By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 7th, 2007In a bleak assessment of the future of the planet, the leading international network of climate scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is “unequivocal” and that human activity is the principal culprit, “very likely” causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950.They added that the world was sure to suffer centuries of climbing temperatures, rising seas and shifting weather patterns–all certain results of the growing heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, or what is often referred to as the “greenhouse effect“.But their report, released in Paris on Feb. 2nd by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, did offer one ray of hope, saying that global warming and its consequences could be substantially reduced by prompt action.While the report expressly avoided recommending courses of action, officials from the United Nations agencies that created the panel in 1988 said it spoke of the urgent need to limit looming and momentous risks.“In our daily lives we all respond urgently to dangers that are much less likely than climate change to affect the future of our children,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which administers the panel along with the World Meteorological Organization.“Feb. 2 will be remembered as the date when uncertainty was removed as to whether humans had anything to do with climate change on this planet,” he added. “The evidence is on the table.”Even a level of warming which falls in the middle of the group’s range of projections would be likely to wreck havoc on ecosystems, and would alter current climate patterns that shape water supplies and agricultural production, according to many climate experts and biologists.The report is the panel’s fourth assessment since 1990 on the causes and consequences of climate change, but it is the first in which the group asserts with near certainty– more than 90 percent confidence–that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming in the past half century.The 20-page summary reveals the basic findings which most clearly effect the public and world leaders. The full report, containing thousands of pages of technical background, will be released in four sections through 2007.Both the 2007 report and the 2001 study are online at www.ipcc.ch.The Bush Administration, which until recently has flatly denied the proof that humans were warming the planet in harmful ways, made a show of embracing the findings, and asserted that the United States had played a leading role in studying and combating climate change, in part by an investment of an average of almost $5 billion a year for the past six years in research and tax incentives for new technologies.At the same time, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman rejected the idea of unilateral limits on emissions. “We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution,” he said.But Bodman is not being entirely honest: The United States, with about 5 percent of the world’s population, contributes about one-fourth of all greenhouse gas emissions–more than any other country on the planet.Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has called the idea of dangerous human-driven warming a hoax, issued a news release headed “Corruption of Science” that rejected the report as “a political document.”But Senator Inhofe, a career politician well cared for by the very industries doing such serious damage to the earth, forgets that politics is not found in admitting scientifically verified truths, but in denying those truths–especially when they implicate generous friends.John Holdren, an energy and climate expert at Harvard who is the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, replies that the report “powerfully underscores the need for a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruption before intolerable consequences become inevitable.”In fact, many energy and environment experts see the disastrous effects of global warming as a foregone conclusion after 2050 unless there is a prompt and sustained shift away from the 20th-century pattern of unfettered burning of coal and oil, the main sources of carbon dioxide, and an aggressive expansion of non-polluting sources of energy.Some authors of the report say no one–at least, no honest person–could point to any remaining uncertainties as justification for further delay.“Policy makers paid us to do good science, and now we have very high scientific confidence in this work–this is real, this is real, this is real,” said Richard Alley, one of the lead authors and a professor at Pennsylvania State University.“So now act, the ball’s back in your court.”
