E-mail
Print
RSS
G-bookmarks
Live
TechnoratiWASHINGTON – Global warming is “unequivocal” and the world will suffer catastrophic natural disasters if the international community fails to respond, warned the most comprehensive report on climate change on Saturday.
(Photo: AP Images / Thibault Camus)Traffic jammed on the ring in Paris, Friday Nov. 16, 2007 on the third full transport strike day. The strike centers on a protest over President Nicolas Sarkozy's promise to strip away benefits that allow some public sector workers to retire earlier than most other workers with full benefits.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 2,000 scientists from 140 countries, reported that carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere will eventually raise sea levels up to 4.6 feet above that in the preindustrial period, about 1850, over the next 1,000 years, according to The Associated Press.
“We have already committed the world to sea-level rise,” Panel Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said, according to AP. But scientists noted they cannot predict how much the seas will rise if the Greenland ice sheet melts.
The report from the U.N. panel of scientists was the combination of three previous reports and the product of six years of work researching global warming and its effects on human heath, the oceans, wildlife and other topics, according to the San Francisco Chronicles.
It found that since 1970, global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 70 percent, and concluded that they are causing global warming.
“Only urgent, global action will do,” said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, urging the United States and China – the two biggest polluters – to increase efforts to counter climate change, according to AP.
“I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role,” he said. “Both countries can lead in their own way.”
Ban further called for international cooperation.
“We are all in this together. We must work together,” the U.N. head stated, ahead of next month’s key climate conference.
The report by the U.N. panel of scientists is intended to set the stage and serve as a guide for the conference in Bali, Indonesia, where world leaders will discuss a global climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
“This report will have an incredible political impact,” Yvo de Boer, the U.N.’s top climate change official, said according to AP. “It’s a signal that politicians cannot afford to ignore.”
However, not all scientists agree on the global warming issue. John Coleman,prominent meteorologist and founder of The Weather Channel, called global warming an “outrageous scam.”
He said his research and investigation makes it “very clear” that global warming is a “manufactured crisis.”
“It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming … It is a SCAM,” wrote Coleman in a blog on San Diego television station KUSI, where he currently forecasts the weather.
He said science that supports arguments favoring global warming “has been manipulated” resulting in what he calls “bad science.” The long-time meteorologist also said the earth is undergoing a natural cycle in weather that is more responsible than any climate change, and that over the next two decades there is an equal chance for a cooling trend as a warming trend.
“Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you ‘believe in,’” Coleman wrote. “It is science, the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam.” Continue >>
jc4me »
Agree: 
Disagree: 
