Humans and global warming

[Aoi Kurenai]

Click. Pretty interesting read.

By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle

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.

The scientists said it was "very likely" -- or more than 90 percent probable -- that human activities led by burning fossil fuels explained most of the warming in the past 50 years.

That is a toughening from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) last report in 2001, which judged a link as "likely", or 66 percent probable.

Possible signs range from drought in Australia to record high winter temperatures in Europe.

"February 2, 2007 may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether (people) are to blame for climate change," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program.

"Faced with this emergency, now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution, in the true sense of the term," French President Jacques Chirac said. "We are in truth on the historical doorstep of the irreversible."

 

[icebolt]

What's interesting about this to me is that it needed the world's top climate scientists to confirm something that we've known about for years. Global warming is man-made? Oh gee, you think?:sly: Masters of obvious, they are.

On a more serious and less cynical note, though, let's hope that people will really take this bit of news at least more seriously than previous warnings. The movie "Day After Tomorrow" hit that message home for me, even though it's Hollywood-style drama.

 

[Z-Unit]

Everytime you fart...A polar bear dies.

 

[Kamen Wyrd]

Everytime you fart...A polar bear dies.

And a horrible CG wolf is created to appease PETA

 

[SaikoDragon]

well instead of bitching about it, maybe mister Frenchy would like to invent a car that runs on water or some ****. Actually do something to help society shift into a climate friendly way of life. Bitching about it and expecting others to do the work doesnt impress me.

 

[JFC]

I read the first sentence of the article and said, "No ****."

 

[neoboy3000]

The REALLY stupid part is that this morning a hand full of organizations announced they will paying scientists to write studies contradicting these findings. As all say, tis a no-brainer that it's our fault. Our population is much larger than nature ever intended I'm sure, and anybody who didn't sleep all of biology knows that's going to screw things up (whether you burn coal or not).

I think it's interesting that people view it as an overall problem. For the human race, sure. We'll all die out. But it wouldn't be the first (or the last) time that the Earth underwent a major climate shift. The animals that adapt live, and those that don't become extinct. Granted, this is creating some rather violent changes to our atmosphere and climate, but we can't all throw on the brakes at once and hope it to be fixed. In the end I suppose my POV is just ... why did they spend all that time to determine the obvious? *shrug* We're all just doomed I guess ^_^;; (not to sound too cynical.....hehe)