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Dire Warming Report too Soft, Scientists Say
A new global warming report issued Friday by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of Earth's future: hundreds of millions of people short of water, extreme food shortages in Africa, a landscape ravaged by floods and millions of species sentenced to extinction.Despite its harsh vision, the report was quickly criticized by some scientists who said its findings were watered down at the last minute by governments seeking to deflect calls for action.
"The science got hijacked by the political bureaucrats at the late stage of the game," said John Walsh, a climate expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who helped write a chapter on the polar regions.
Even in its softened form, the report outlined devastating effects that will strike all regions of the world and all levels of society. Those without resources to adapt to the changes will suffer the most, according to the study from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, which released the report in Brussels.
The report is the second of four scheduled to be issued this year by the U.N., which marshaled more than 2,500 scientists to give their best predictions of the consequences of a few degrees increase in temperature. The first report, released in February, said global warming was irreversible but could be moderated by large-scale societal changes.
That report said with 90% confidence that the warming was caused by humans, and its conclusions were widely accepted because of the years of accumulated scientific data supporting them.
In contrast, the latest report was more controversial because it tackled the more uncertain issues of the precise effects of warming and the ability of humans to adapt to them.
"When you put people into the equation, people who can adapt and respond and change their behavior, it adds another layer of complication," said Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University who helped write the report.
But the report is also, in a sense, a more pointed indictment of the world's biggest polluters - the industrialized nations - and a more specific identification of those who will suffer.
Thus, some nations lobbied for last-minute changes to the dire predictions. Negotiations led to deleting some timelines for events, as well as some forecasts on how many people would be affected on each continent as global temperatures rose.
An earlier draft, for example, specified that water would become increasingly scarce for up to a billion people in Asia if temperatures rose 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit - a point that previous studies have said is likely to be reached by 2100.
A table outlining how various levels of carbon dioxide emissions corresponded to increasing temperatures and their effects was also removed.
The actions were seen by critics as an attempt to ease the pressure on industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are gradually warming the planet.
Several scientists vowed afterward that they would never participate in the process again because of the interference.
"Once is enough," said Walsh, who was not present during the negotiations in Brussels but was kept abreast of developments with a steady stream of e-mails from colleagues. "I was receiving hourly reports that grew increasingly frustrated."
The report paints a bleak picture, noting that the early signs of warming are already here.
Spring is arriving earlier, with plants blooming weeks ahead of schedule. In the mountains, runoff begins earlier in the year, shrinking glaciers in the Alps, the Himalayas and the Andes.
Habitats for plants and animals, on land and in the oceans, are shifting toward the poles.
Nineteen of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 1980, according to previous studies. The report said that more frequent and more intense heat waves were "very likely" in the future.
In some places, warming might seem like a good thing at first.
For example, worldwide food production is expected to increase with the first few degrees of temperature rise. For a time, an expanded fertile zone in the higher latitudes could offset losses in the tropics.
But at a certain point, crops everywhere will suffer as drought spreads. By mid-century, rising temperatures and drying soil will turn tropical forest to savanna in eastern Amazonia, the report predicts.
In North America, snowpack in the West will decline, causing more floods in the winter and reduced flows in the summer, increasing competition for water for crops and people.
California agriculture will be decimated by the loss of water for irrigation, experts have previously said.
Water will come more often around the world in its least welcome forms: storms and floods.
Rising temperatures will reconfigure coastlines around the world as the oceans rise. The tiny islands of the South Pacific and the Asian deltas will be overwhelmed by storm surges.
In the Andes and the Himalayas, melting glaciers will unleash floods and rock avalanches. But within a few decades, as the glaciers and snowpack decline, streams will dwindle, cutting the main water supply to more than a sixth of the world's population.
Between 20% and 30% of the world's species will disappear if temperatures rise 2.7 to 4.5 degrees, the report said.
Africa will suffer the most, with up to a quarter of a billion people running short of water by 2020, and yields from rain-fed crops falling by half in many countries. The continent could spend at least 5% to 10% of its gross domestic product to adapt to rising sea levels, the report said.
"Don't be poor in a hot country, don't live in hurricane alley, watch out about being on the coasts or in the Arctic, and it's a bad idea to be on a high mountain," said Stephen Schneider of Stanford University, one of the scientists who contributed to the report.
The Bush administration quickly made it clear that it would not be stampeded by the report into taking part in the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit emissions of carbon dioxide. The U.S. withdrew from the protocol in 2001, saying it was too expensive and did not impose enough controls on developing nations.
"Each nation sort of defines their regulatory objectives in different ways to achieve the greenhouse reduction outcome that they seek," said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, during a teleconference Friday from Brussels.
Sharon Hays, associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, noted in the same teleconference that "not all projected impacts are negative."
Other governments, such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, had already expressed their displeasure with parts of the report by demanding changes - some of them seemingly minor in the grand scheme of climate change.
Panel member Yohe said that China and Saudi Arabia, for example, objected to a sentence that stated "very high confidence" that many natural systems were already being affected by regional climate changes, arguing that "very" should be removed.
After a long deadlock, U.S. delegates brokered a compromise that removed the reference to confidence levels.
The U.S. delegation opposed a section that said parts of North America could suffer "severe" economic damage from climate change.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said in a prepared statement that political agendas need to be left behind and quick action taken to cut emissions.
"Global warming is already underway, but it is not too late to slow it down and reduce its harmful effects," she said. "We must base our actions on the moral imperative and the scientific record, free of political interference."
Susanne Moser, a research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said the political changes to the report do not diminish the need for action.
"When you have it this black and white, it is very hard to deny the reality and continue to do nothing," she said. "I don't know how you do that if you have a moral bone in your body."
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
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22 Comments so far
Show AllEven the proponents of this report are not taking the situation serious enough. The predictions in this report are the most likely ones - the mean of their predictions - not the more dire ones which entail pretty much our extinction.
In contrast various agencies decided a while back that assuring public safety requires that large dams be designed for the most remote scenarios - the probable maximum flood, and the maximum credible earthquake - events with average occurrences in the order of tens of thousands of years or longer.
So, considering the much more dire dire consequences or runaway global warming, shouldn't we be doing what is necessary to prevent the "maximum credible warming"? So, far, even the EU's carbon reduction plans are not nearly adequate for this criteria?
It's all pretty hopeless...
The last paragraph gives a hint as to what we can expect from our present leadership.
exactly right nietzche- them without a moral bone in their bodies is our present leadership -
Nature turns our heads and demands our attention,
We are, indeed, responsible for the imbalances which destroy species and shorelines,
We will be destroyed for this inate ignorance which all indigenous peoples have always instinctively known,
Nature always survives to foster hope for a new sustainable earth.
Hopefully, we will give this priority over monetary/political control by wars and violence.
We are our own worst enemy, not the terrorists!
It is dusgusting the politics interferes with science but denial will be overcome by reality.
It is remarkable that it took the Al Gore's documentary "Inconvenient Truth", and now this recent report, to alert many to the impending dangers from global warming--which has been obvious to anyone who had made even minor efforts to be informed. The evidence linking carbon pollution to warming is as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by the scientific community, many dedicated environmental organizations including The Union of Concerned Scientists, and chronicled in the press for years.
The dangerous manipulation of essential scientific data used by this administration to conceal and derail corrective measures for this threat and other vital environmental reforms has also been apparent. Th gullibility of so many who are influanced by them is more alarming than the scientific manipulation itself.
Contrary to their assertions, measures to reduce greenhouse gases could only improve our economy by lessening our trade deficits, and improving our security by reducing our dependance on foreign oil. We could also regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our opposition Kyoto while arrogantly contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. With our involvement, China & India could then be compelled to join the rest of the developed world.
Often overlooked is the fact that the same measures needed to mitigate global warming would be necessary even if it were not an issue. Conservation, alternative energy development, anti- pollution refinements, etc are essential for other vital environmental reforms such as air and water quality, reductions in toxic waste generation, land preservation, etc.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to (and even denial of) carbon pollution and its effects can only worsen if we allow these destructive policies of this reckless and unlearned president and his financial supporters to continue. Robert Settgast
San Rafael, CA
to a friend
on a part of the question
of how we might distinguish
between that which has
rights
and that which does not:
well, one thing is clear
any rock borrows nothing
to be -
which you simply cannot
say
of an artifact -
always built from somebody's bones -
nothing made from
what wasn't -
what is here –
what is made
is made with what is here -
the question of how we treat corpses
is the place in this world
where our traveling
thought and the
beat of the earth
coincide
what is here
was here. hear the
nuthatch's tin horn
and try to remember
the last hummingbird
you saw -
what is made
was made from the corpse of what is
here.
see the diatom dead
at the bottom
of the sea. the seas die.
i see across the water
i see the refinery at cherry
point.
ive seen kinglets and chickadees
and sparrows collude.
how often these tall flames
from the mainland –
we are the ghosts.
you are a ghost. you are.
A great and basically hopeful book re- these issues is Duane Elgin's Promise Ahead. He really seems to have a solid sense of the kind of changes we are facing, and the kind of shifts we need to make.
In addition to urgent practical changes, some of these have to do with evolving our consciousness far beyond the models we are using now.
And it seems that there are some very positive trends, like waves, that we would be wise to notice --- and then to surf into shore!
Excellent Article! Thank you Mr. Zarembo and Mr. Maugh.
At the root of this problem is the mentality of some that they have the right to obtain a profit from the resources of this earth without regard to others or long term effects. The similar argument is that they have a right to be "happy" and everyone should watch out for themselves.
Of course, this is assinine thinking. The middle east gave birth to the science and technology that we enjoy today. It started in the middle east and spread to Europe just as it 'spread' to the United States.
Carl Sagan wrote and spoke, as so many have, of the existence of a culture and city called Alexandria. Sagan and others have given credible proof that higher mathematics and physics were developed in that city so long ago. Long before Einstein, Newton or any of the more contemporary thinkers. Long before Christ, we as humankind were building pyramids with mathematical precision. *ONLY* IN THE MIDDLE EAST! Our science, as is so apparent in the history of Alexandria, began there.
No one can argue with the fact that technology was brought to the shores of the US, that it immigrated here, and that our technology was not inherent within our native peoples. Knowledge was transferred here and took root and grew. And if we follow technology back as we do our linage or evolution, we find it has its roots in the middle east.
With that said, we have watched over the course of several thousands of years as the forests that once occured in the middle east have diminished and have been replaced by deserts. Of course, most arrogant irresponsible people will deny this and stick there head in the sand. But the truth is, as the human species was not so numerous, such precedence of environmental change and damage did not spread beyond the region. But certainly that gradual degredation of their natural resources resulted in a future lack of ability to compete with the rest of the world. With time, the FIRST nations became THIRD WORLD nations. Why? Because of the greed and selfishness that consumed and destroyed their resources.
My point here is that today we have technology, and the abuse of it and our environment, in every nation and continent on earth. It is no longer contained within a certain small region of the world. We are, just as happened in the middle east over the last millenium, abusing our technology and destroying not just local but all ecosystems on earth today concurrently.
Yes, the earth has warmed in the past. Yes, the earth has cooled in the past. But NEVER has it warmed or cooled so quickly. It is not an issue of warming or cooling, it is an issue of TEMPORAL MAGNITUDE - and a question of whether the things of this earth are able to adapt to sudden change.
As as we know from human caused extinctions, living things cannot adapt to sudden change. It takes thousands of years for plants to undergo genetic mutations and define the trial and errors that result in a change that provides a benefit under changing conditions. If those changing conditions are too fast or, stated another way, the mutations too slow to keep up with changing conditions, then things die.
It is that simple.
Cooling and warming continents in the history of this earth have operated on the scale of tens of thousands of year. What we are seeing today is change in 10's of years. HUMAN caused change. There is not precedence for what we are seeing today. And there is no precedence for the number of humans existing on this earth.
This is a hundred fold increase in the RATE of change. And living things will not survive it.
There is noone reading this article who can deny that a single catastrophic event in our personal lives can be survived. But if many such events happen in succession, it causes greater and greater stress to the point that our quality of life degenerates. And if the stress is to severe, we die from the RATE OF CHANGES. Even a man who experiences heart failure rarely dies of the heart organ but of the resulting complications and changes defined by lack of oxygen, water in the lungs (pulmonary edema), etc. It is the overwhelmingness of TOO MUCH TOO FASTthat kills us. Too many things happening at once overwhelms us. It is not the number of changes, but how fast they come to us.
The RATE of change.
And only an idiot would deny this.
We are biological beings. And we are a reflection of the larger biological systems of which we are a part. And RAPID rate of change is as detrimental to that larger biological system (aka, ecology) as it is to us as individuals.
With the exception of those species that have high reproductive rates (aka, bacteria) the majority of larger life forms (plants and animals) have not evolved nor can they survive rapid change. Bacteria poplulate by the million in one or two days. And so there is ample opportunity to test new mutations in a short period of time. But this in not true of grass that produces a head of a dozen seeds a year. It takes 10's of thousands of years for that grass to produce the millions of seeds to provide for that ONE mutation that might see it survive.
Quite frankly, I am not necessarily opposed to human induced global warming. What I am concerned of is rapid change.
Now, you arrogant folks have stuck your head in the sand and have given precedence to your arrogance and pride and refused to listen to truth and reason. Or worse... you may have stuck your head up your arse so far as to fill your ears and your cranical cavity with feces. And some even continue to force the situation to the degree that a the resulting internal pressure spews such filthly lack of logic and reason out of your mouths. Our currrent administration is a prime example. But the truth of the above of RAPID GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE is evident to any rational person who has matured to a state of responsble behavior and management of their primitive sense of selfishness, greed, rape and pillage.
We have watched as over the ages as the forests of the middle east where science and technology were born, becIt comes down to selfishness and greed.
There is a philosophy in the US "he who dies with the most wins the game." And as they erode the potential resources, their argument is that the next generation will somehow find a way to survive and that they are have no concern for the current sentimentality for the environment or sustainability. You log, rape and pillage and let the future worry about itself. In essence, it is in fact a rape mentality - "to hell with others, I am going to take and profit and enjoy this earth while I can regardless of how much my consumption or greed impacts others."
This is the root of American Corporatism. Certainly,
My country is full of selfish and greedy people. More so because we have had it so well for so many years. We have become soft and demanding... as is apparent of any nation that has abused it's success - its excesses - as is so apparent of the Bush Presidency.
"My country is full of selfish and greedy people. More so because we have had it so well for so many years. We have become soft and demanding… as is apparent of any nation that has abused it's success - its excesses - as is so apparent of the Bush Presidency."
Yes, this is evident, Wildlander...and very well put.
Affluent Americans like to blame the poor for taking "entitlements" (aka, welfare, food stamps, etc.) when in reality it's the rest of us (anyone on Common Dreams poor?) who act as if we were entitled to live in this way. Every dollar we spend, every mile we drive, every meal we eat, every day that we tarry, costs the rest of the world dearly, both in human and ecological terms.
We're really just kidding ourselves if we think we are going to do anything of significance before global warming kills millions of people.
The world's leading proponent of global warming theory, Al Gore, has a house that consumes 20 times the average american's electrical usage. He flies all over the world instead of taking the train where possible. He drives a hybrid Lexus that gets great acceleration but marginally better mileage instead of a plug-in modified Prius or a biodiesel capable Volkswagon.
The example's of the three Democratic frontrunners for the presidency on climate change are a joke. None of them has a house that is as efficient as Bush's Crawford ranch house (an amazing and cynical propoganda victory BTW).
So if the world's most prominent global warming advocate can't cut his consumption despite having millions of dollars don't hold your breath waithing for middle class america. They are going to drive their kids to school in a massive SUV fueled by ethanol if it means everbody in Africa starves.
Hell, just today I saw a family that used two vehicles, an SUV and a Volvo station wagon to drive 4 people to the park for a family bicycle ride. There is a guy in my town that tows his rock crawler jeep with his Hummer. It's that bad. There's a huge gap between where we are and where we need to be.
The actual CO2 reductions needed in order to return to equilibrium are on the order of 80% of current output. That means no fossil-fueled cars, planes, trucks and no coal-fired power plants.
The future is going to be an endless rerun of the Katrina disaster until we get it into our thick heads that we must live in harmony with the planet.
Nature bats last.
they want it to happen. they think america'll come out on top. that's all i've got left.
i'm all ears if somebody has a better explanation for how hard the bush-cheney people are fighting on this. there's so much evidence now, for anybody with their brains to be doing it for the money, or for petty fights with developing countries, or for partisan pride, or, what? they've already shown they think the world belongs to them.
their treatment of AIDS, or iraq, or sudan, or refusing to help indonesia at first... their attitude toward human rights... show me an instance where they haven't done the white supremacist thing.
these are very, very bad people.
i thought we were better. i thought the industrial world had put genocide behind us. i can't believe i'm writing this! but we have. we've crossed the line on this from ignorance and laziness to murder. even if it's a minority of us, even if it's barely a tick on a chart, what kind of filth do you have to have in your mind to do this?
how can america be as great as they think, if it kills millions at its pleasure? where's the evidence? where's the proof of our moral superiority? in our church attendance records? in our long term plans? it's unreal.
stalin, hitler, and mao are laughing at us. outlasted the men, but never quite put the monster to bed.
"The Bush administration quickly made it clear that it would not be stampeded by the report into taking part in the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit emissions of carbon dioxide."
The science on global warming isn't "good enough" for Bush. But then the science demonstrating the validity of Darwinian evolution isn't "good enough" for him either.
Realists know this.
We are running out of natural resources at the same time we are suffering from population explosion and dramatic loss in habitation.
There were two ways to work with this inevitability.
1) The world in a spirit of sharing to avoid conflict would work out a plan to share diminished resources and at the same time find solutions to both controlling population and alternative sources of energy.
2) Or do what we've always done. Seek out what we needed and crush with the use of deceit and brutal force any and all that would get in our way not really caring that the consequences of our actions would seal the world to a horribly, miserable fate.
We picked #2 - again. I've never been a big fan of mankind.
So, we've blown it. We crawled out of the cave and never let go of the club and we wound up beating ourselves to death with it.
It's why I drink and spit on SUV's
I agree with the posters here who say this is too little too late, and that fat channel-surfing countries like the US are mostly to blame.
But I also blame worldviews that promote fertility rates of 6-10 offspring per woman, such as we find in Utah and countries dominated by Muslims and Catholics.
Things will get a lot worse before any homeostasis will occur.
One problem is a growing ideology -- call it fundamentalism -- that dismisses facts when it plans its course of action.
As well, in rich countries like the US, where the gap between rich and poor is eggregious, there is a group of people who believe they can insulate themselves from the effects of all this. Have you seen the ads for homes in the little island country of Turks and Caicos where only rich people live? No gangs, no homeless, no pollution...
But even our countries' rich escapees, with all their offshore tax havens, will not be spared.
A commeuppance is due.
Something will survive from all of this. There will still be human society in the year 2200. But will it be a police state created to control the masses of malcontents? Or will it be more in alignment with the vision we say is "the american dream."
I think the outcome has a lot to do with the quality of our physical environment, and our willingness to make collective sacrifice. By collective I mean the elites, too.
Just as global warming will boost the growth of weeds and woody vines like poison oak, at the expense of redwood and plum trees, so it is that the "weed" version of human society may fluorish, with greed and violence and division gaining the upperhand.
I read an anarchist book once, I think it was Future Primitive by John Zerzan, that said fossil-fuel dependent society was going to end, and it was our choice either to prepare for it and make changes now, or delay the readying, and suffer a calamitous crash landing.
Even then, Zerzan went on to discuss the unsustainability of nearly all our activities, in terms of energy or "solar" units. For example, solar panels might be cool and clean, but the amount of real energy it takes to manufacture them easily outstrips the devices' energy output in the longterm.
I am not saying we're all going back to wood burning stoves to heat our homes, but how far our nation will have to go in order to find equilibrium in a SHARED planet is very much an open question.
As long as we accept politics as usual and refuse to vigorously defend the rule of law and basic principles of decency and universal human rights the politicians we put in office will continue to make unfortunate decisions.
Mark A. Goldman
http://www.gpln.com
whatever happened to the sixties mantra about "changing the system?" Why have we allowed ourselves to be overrun by interests some used to call capitalist pigs?
well it sure is music to the ears to hear "capitalist pig" out and about
- an easter resurrection -
long may it wave.
"they want it to happen. they think america'll come out on top. that's all i've got left."
Yup
"We're really just kidding ourselves if we think we are going to do anything of significance before global warming kills millions of people."
Yup
SO....let's start keeping track of the politicians, political action groups, think tanks, and ESPECIALLY the corporations who are resisting real change in terms of global warming. Start a web site or something where these folks' names can be registered and when the S@%T hits the fan, we'll have a list of who is no longer entitled to clean water and a decent living environment. It'll be an official "we told you so". Start now. The list is gonna be long.
Another decade of Bush style leadership and Siouxrose will be burned at the stake for witchcraft, Rebelfarmer will be drawn and quartered in front of a hooting mob of born-again Christians, and Nietzsche will find himself on the rack until he proves corporations care only about the bottom line.
Some light reading as to the future of humans and the planet try reading Cormac McCarthy's new book The Road....Its even worse if you happen to have a new child.... I am selling all the junk I can to stay home with my child...and make no money on the books so no bomb and bullet money from me....and yes Nietzche they will come for me too...
I like what the Lady Scientist said about moral backbones .... but she must have forgotten that our politicians are all spineless snakes. I guess she's not a Herpetologist. Good point though.
www.okiespotlight.com