U. N. Climate Panel Says 'Global Warming' is Man Made - Now What Happens??

[Croynan]

Reuters

U.N. climate panel says global warming man-made

By Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle 37 minutes ago

2, February 2006

The U.N. climate panel issued its strongest warning yet on Friday that human activities are heating the planet, adding pressure on governments to do more to combat accelerating global warming.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most authoritative group on warming grouping 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted more severe rains, melting glaciers, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

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

That is a toughening from the last report, in 2001, when the IPCC said the link was "likely," or 66 percent probable. Signs of change range from drought in Australia to record high January temperatures in Europe.

"Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human) greenhouse gas concentrations," said the text, seen by Reuters.

IPCC leaders will present the results of six years' work in Paris at 0830 GMT after meeting since Monday to review a draft. Three other IPCC reports later in 2007 will give more details of threats and ways to combat change.

A 20-page summary for policy makers outlines wrenching change such as a possible melting of Arctic sea ice in summers by 2100 and a slowing of the Gulf Stream linked to an accelerating temperature rise.

U.N. officials say they hope the report will prompt governments -- led by the United States -- and companies to do more to cut greenhouse gases, released mainly by burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars.


The President of Kiribati, a group of 33 Pacific coral atolls threatened by rising seas, said time was running out.

"We're happy that now at last there is agreement," President Anote Tong said a visit to Tokyo. "The question is, what can we do now? There's very little we can do about arresting the process."

The IPCC 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 with 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. The world is about 5C warmer than during the last Ice Age.

The head of the U.S. delegation said the IPCC report was a "comprehensive and accurate" presentation of climate science and that President George W. Bush's policies, braking the rise of emissions rather than cutting them, were working.

"The President has put in place a comprehensive set of policies to address what he has called the 'serious challenge' of climate change," Sharon Hays, Associate Director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, told Reuters.

Many backers of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, a plan binding 35 industrial nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 2012, want outsiders to get more involved. Top emitters the United States and China are not bound by Kyoto targets.

Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying caps would harm the economy and that Kyoto unfairly omitted developing nations from a first period to 2012. He focuses instead on big investments in technologies such as hydrogen and biofuels.

Sea levels are likely to rise by between 28 and 43 cm (11-17 inches) this century, according to a draft.

The range is lower than forecast in 2001 but delegates said they clarified that the projection did not include the possibility of an accelerating melt of Greenland ice, which some studies suggest is under way.

​

eM.

 

[spreadeagle]

We all turn off our computers and start living in the real world.

 

[pornoboy]

...the diluvian will come

 

[VICTORIADON]

roll your eyes and carry on, in 30 years they will be saying the opposite again with all the proof that an ice age is coming.
See Newsweek 1975:
http://denisdutton.com/cooling_world.htm

Scientists are almost as bad as politicians for spreading BS.
What is true today is false tomorrow.

 

[Nishin]

^ You mean things like: "the Earth is not flat" ? ... or "Humans descend from ape-like creatures" ? ... or "The sun will go supernova in abour 5 billions years" ?


http://justusboys.com/forum/showthread.php?t=141026

 

[jkirk3000]

Whether man is the primary and/or the only cause of global warming seems somewhat irrelevant to me. Won't we all benefit if we treat the environment better? Perhaps most of you are too young to remember, but I remember riding my bike as a kid and gagging from time to time when I was stuck in traffic. Before we started regulated car pollution, the air was clogged with gunk - everywhere smelled like northern New Jersey!

 

[BenF]

A piece of general ignorance...

The Ice Age has not ended. We are still in an ice age.

The Earth is not supposed to have ice caps.

There is no such thing as global warming, climate change is part of the natural cycle of the Earth. Trying to stop it is like trying to stop the tide - utterly futile. Politicians are only interested in climate change because enough people who don't know any better are getting all excited about it, and it is a nice way to raise revenue.

From what I have been told, the UK will get a climate like the South of France and the Dutch are going to drown. It's a win-win situation.

 

[VICTORIADON]

^ You mean things like: "the Earth is not flat" ? ... or "Humans descend from ape-like creatures" ? ... or "The sun will go supernova in abour 5 billions years" ?

Yes, most of those thoughts would have gotten you burned at the stake years ago, but are now widely accepted.
The supposed experts were wrong and many people were killed because of their beliefs.
NEXT.

 

[VICTORIADON]

Anyone ever think that rising temps is just the natural order of things? Like that's what caused the first ice age to melt?

It's all Democratic poppycock

It is the natural order of things, always has been, always will be.
I will not say it is Democratic poppycock, because it is all BS.

Hey, you guys in California, did you hear that "DawAnold is moving to ban all incandscent light bulb? Cost of one incandscent bulb is a fraction of the cost of what he wants, and the cost of the new bulb will never make up for the cost of "saved" energy.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/31/new...htbulbs.reut/index.htm?postversion=2007013108

HEY ALL, THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING.

 

[VICTORIADON]

yeah sometimes scientists are wrong, that's why you need other scientists to prove it wrong.

they're not wrong this time, but the hysteria and the near ideological dogmatism coming from unscientific eco-terrorists is definitely disconcerting. another case of politics and mass stupidty polluting the field of science.



it's probably both nature and humanity just like millions of other things?

Here is a man that is thinking about the two sides and not swallowing just for the sake of swallowing.

 

[VICTORIADON]

yeah sometimes scientists are wrong, that's why you need other scientists to prove it wrong.

they're not wrong this time,

Weapons of mass distruction all over the place! Holy fuck. Let's go in and bomb the crap out of everything.
We know what we are talking about. Trust us. We can see it. Can't you?

 

[gaz1978]

I thought Global Warming was a "liberal myth"...?

 

[VICTORIADON]

It gets even better yet...

Now there is the "Carbon footprint" of the food you eat.

If you eat, let's say bananas, those bananas if they are not grown in your yard, they may have to be have flown to you, and if they have been flown to you, that it increasing the carbon in the atmosphere, therefore you are contributing to global warming.

STOP AND MEASURE EVERYTHING YOU PUT IN YOUR MOUTH

Well, I don't measure, if it feels good, I do it.

 

[Croynan]

BBC News

July 4, 2005

Bush rejects Kyoto-style G8 deal

President George W Bush has ruled out US backing for any Kyoto-style deal on climate change at the G8 summit.

Speaking to British broadcaster ITV, he said he would instead be talking to fellow leaders about new technologies as a way of tackling global warming.

But he conceded that the issue was one "we've got to deal with" and said human activity was "to some extent" to blame.

Tony Blair is hoping for agreements on climate change and Africa when he hosts the summit in Scotland this week.

Mr Bush said he would resist measures that were similar to the 1997 UN Kyoto Protocol, involving legally binding reductions on carbon emissions, which Washington never ratified.


"If this looks like Kyoto, the answer is no," he said in an interview with ITV's Tonight With Trevor McDonald programme to be broadcast on Monday.

"The Kyoto treaty would have wrecked our economy, if I can be blunt."

He said he hoped the other G8 leaders would "move beyond the Kyoto debate" and consider new technologies.

He said the US was investing in developing clean energy techniques such as sequestration of carbon dioxide in underground wells, hydrogen-powered cars and zero emission power stations.

Divided opinion

UK Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett told the BBC's Today programme that negotiations were likely to "go to the wire".

"I think what matters more than the exact theology is where people end up," she said.


CLIMATE CHANGE

"What we hope for is quite an ambitious action plan on steps that the international community can take and also agreement to try to take forward discussion and dialogue about the future."

French President Jacques Chirac has said he is hopeful of reaching a deal on climate change, but German environment minister Juergen Trittin said he was "very sceptical on the willingness of the US to move".

One of Mr Bush's main domestic critics on global warming, Senator John McCain, called the president's approach on the issue "disgraceful".

"I'm not quite sure how you'll bridge the gap," he told the BBC's Today programme, but he said he hoped the president and Mr Blair would be able to forge a compromise.

 

[JOHN B]

I feel that the global warming that is happening is a NATURAL event. not man-made. We are too small, and our planet is too big for us to have that much of an effect. Whats happening now are just natural temperature fluctuations that happen every few thousand years, and we just happen to be around for this one. Geological studies have found this happening many times throughout the planets history. It's happened before and its going to happen again.

 

[dunno260]

A theory. Not yet a fact. Not scientifically proven. Maybe never will be proven. Most likely will not be proven.

Follow the money. Hillary wants ALL of the oil profits put into a FUND to use for alternative fuel research. Follow the money! No one asked for her windfall on the cattle futures she made 1,000% profits on.

Note that this is the "concensus" of scientist who need funding to continue "their work". Follow the money!

There are very, very few scientific facts. Things you take for granted everyday are probably scientific theories. Gravity is a scientific theory, though we don't hold congressional hearings on it and disallow the teaching of it in schools.

Yeah, global warming is a theory and probably won't ever get past that stage. However theory has a special meaning in science, and is completely different from what we use in common vernacular. What you think of as a theory in science would best be described as a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a guess, or educated guess, or perhaps the conclusion you gain from a small number of experiments. For example, I have done anti-cancer research with a rhodium based drug. I have spent probably 300+ hours working with the drug trying to determine how it kills cells. I have a hypothesis that it doesn't kill cells by binding to the DNA, but even with 300+ hours of work, I do not have enough work to publish in any credible scientific journal (or enough data to prove my hypothesis). As a side note, this new anticancer "drug" that is all abuzz on the internet is actually a part of of my drug (dichloroacetic acid), which is very interesting.

So what do you and other doubters doubt about global warming. Do you doubt the greenhouse effect? Do you doubt that CO2 is a major greenhouse gas? Do you doubt that the concentration of atmospheric CO2 has risen dramatically in the past 50 years due to the burning of fossil fuels? Do you doubt that a greater concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will snowball and pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (ie, the hotter the earth, the more water vapor, and water vapor is a greenhouse gas).

I hear so many people that doubt global warming that I just wonder what they doubt and why they doubt it. It seems that most don't even have a basic grasp of the science of global warming (what the greenhouse effect is, what a greenhouse gas is or isn't, etc.).

I think there are some very valid criticisms of the theory, but I don't think I have heard anyone bring them up who are actually critics of the theory. The scientists who believe in the theory fully acknowledge its failures and that is why its still an actively studied area of science. Other explanations that have been offered for global warming don't match the data we have for global warming and is why scientists don't believe it.

And if you wanted to follow the money for global warming, the same people who oppose it stand to benefit from it. Companies such as GE, Westinghouse, Caterpiller, and yes, even big oil will reap big benefits from spending to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and certainly from the technology that has been proposed to reverse global warming. GE and Westinghouse would build nuclear power plants and I would imagine both would heavily be involved in solar and wind power as well. One of the proposed technologies for reversing the trend is to pump CO2 into giant underground wells and reservoirs and such which would most certainly involve companies that are experts in geological drilling (Exxon, BP, Halliburton).

 

[Nishin]

There is no such thing as global warming

Are you serious?? What planet do you live on??

climate change is part of the natural cycle of the Earth

Err did you not just say there was no such thing?

Trying to stop it is like trying to stop the tide - utterly futile.

Where have you seen that anyone wants to stop normal climate change??

Politicians are only interested in climate change because enough people who don't know any better are getting all excited about it, and it is a nice way to raise revenue.

Oh scientists don't know any better?? You know without science your life span expectancy would probably still be of about 50 years??

Yes, most of those thoughts would have gotten you burned at the stake years ago, but are now widely accepted.
The supposed experts were wrong and many people were killed because of their beliefs.
NEXT.

The persons you call "experts" in this instance were no scientists... merely a bunch of religious integrists persuaded to know the only truth and refusing to even consider studies and evidences, which is exactly what you seem to be doing about this issue.
Have you ever paid attention to any study before screaming blasphe errr BULLSHIT?

A theory. Not yet a fact. Not scientifically proven. Maybe never will be proven. Most likely will not be proven.

Follow the money. Hillary wants ALL of the oil profits put into a FUND to use for alternative fuel research. Follow the money! No one asked for her windfall on the cattle futures she made 1,000% profits on.

Note that this is the "concensus" of scientist who need funding to continue "their work". Follow the money!

Alriiight... scientists are just a bunch of greedy individuals who will create artificial issues to get an excuse to claim foundings indefinitly... YEAH look what they did in the 80s! They pretended humanity was menaced by that new virus from Africa, they hit the jackpot with this one... two decades later they're still asking for founds to work on curing AIDS...

I will reiterate... global warming IS A FACT. It IS scientifically OBSERVED.
What remains unclear is the ROLE humanity plays in it and the degree of that incidence. Which is what this meeting is about...
But once again no-one wants to even get the information BEFORE discrediting everything that has the words global and warming in it... I really wonder what sort of bias or propaganda is at the origin of such stubborn denial of REALITY....

 

[frankfrank]

When scientists are able to *PROVE* that global warming is *NOT* caused or contributed to by human activity, nobody can justifiably say that the whole thing is fake.

And the issue isn't just about something that threatens to cause a minor inconvenience to a few thousand people, or something that will merely cause a factory or magazine to go out of business, or cause a good politician in New Mexico or Hamburg to lose an election. This is about something which, at the minimum, is expected to require the most massive human relocations ever seen, due to changing coastlines, migrating climates (which, yes, can cause some of Earth's places to get colder in spite of the overall trend to global warming), etc. At worst it could cause a complete break in the food chain, or perhaps a RUNAWAY and sudden climate change. Scientists just don't know what the final exact result will be, but it's been proven time and time again that what's going on now is very different than anything during our (short) recorded history of observed world temperatures.

There is probably NOTHING that humans can do to completely reverse global warming (short of "nuclear winter" from all-out high-tech warfare...), because I think there is ALSO a natural warming cycle going on as well. However there is no question that it can be slowed and the U.S. (and the massive multinational corporations headquartered here) could take the lead and become a role model which the world would be encouraged to follow. Why should China, India, Mexico, etc. work on it when the one nation which is most able, prefers to ignore it and assume it doesn't exist?

WE HAVE ONLY ONE PLANET, GUYS...we cannot live ANYWHERE else yet. Yes, a few CEO's or something can live in a space station, but WHAT KIND of boring life is that????? Should we be gambling that we can continue to drill, drill, drill - and that nothing dire will happen? (And what happens when the petroleum RUNS OUT, except for the remainder which costs $1,000 a barrel to extract?) I'm appalled that my country, which definitely could do something to help reverse this, flatly refuses to - and that there's even a refusal to help make any alternatives economically competitive either.

 

[levenshulme31]

Wow, I'm fairly stunned at the number of people denying that climate change is a problem that the world really needs to address.

Like Pathicus above, I'm not a scientist or climate expert but I think I'm fairly intelligent and able to apply my own filters to the information out there.

In the UK, January 2006 was the warmest on record. January 2007 was warmer. We had frost last night for only the second time this Winter. There is a small blossom tree in my garden which has been in blossom for months. Hurricane Katrina was so devastating because the warmer Gulf of Mexico made the storm that bit more powerful. Australia is undergoing its longest drought on record. Any reductions on CO2 emissions the West might make in the next few years (if it makes any) will be dwarfed by the increased CO2 output of China and India (although per head of population, China and India will still emit a fraction of the equivalent CO2 of Americans and Europeans).

I too remember in the 1970s the warnings of a new Ice Age and can understand those saying 'which is it? Hotter or colder? (although there is a theory that the melting Arctic region will decrease the salinity of the North Atlantic and cause the Gulf Stream to switch off which could trigger a mini-ice age).

Personally I think humanity has taken the planet for granted. Our technology nurtures an attitude that nature only really affects other stuff, not us, we can just crank up the AC or Central Heating.

The majority of climate scientists (i.e. those not funded by Exxon) seem to be of the opinion that man made climate change is a reality. I think the world needs to take every possible step to try to put the brakes on it. Gas guzzling cars should be banned or rationed. Unless you live up a mountain or in the wilderness, you don't NEED and SUV. Low energy lightbulbs may be a bit more expensive that regular bulbs but they last many times longer and use a fraction of the energy but do the same job. They are a viable alternative so why not ban the wasteful bulbs?

Every new building and every refurbishment on an existing building should have to be energy efficient. If every building had solar power, proper insulation, light capture (which uses daylight carried via fibre optics to light offices during the day) and the numerous other energy efficient things which are out there, then the amoount of electricity, oil, gas etc could be reduced massively with no reduction in the standard of living.

It could happen. It should happen. It won't happen though. To be honest, I think that we are pretty much screwed.

 

[wanderer]

i think that climate change is natural, but the human element acted as a catalyst to speed it along. alot of energy resources....oil, coal, wood, etc have been used in creating the polution that has contributed to this catalized climate change, and the sad part really is this: over the long term the climate can recover, but our energy resources will not. a move toward alternative energies will be necessary.

so like it or not, as soon as those energy resources run out (100 years max??) the climate change will slow because we are forced to use alternative energies. how fast we start using them now is the question.