SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident in most regions of the globe, a new assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes.
It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. The evidence for this has grown, thanks to more and better observations, an improved understanding of the climate system response and improved climate models.
Warming in the climate system is unequivocal and since 1950 many changes have been observed throughout the climate system that are unprecedented over decades to millennia. Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850, reports the Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Working Group I assessment report, Climate Change 2013: the Physical Science Basis, approved on Friday by member governments of the IPCC in Stockholm, Sweden.
"Observations of changes in the climate system are based on multiple lines of independent evidence. Our assessment of the science finds that the atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amount of snow and ice has diminished, the global mean sea level has risen and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased," said Qin Dahe, Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group I.
Thomas Stocker, the other Co-Chair of Working Group I said: "Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions."
"Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is projected to be likely to exceed 1.5degC relative to 1850 to 1900 in all but the lowest scenario considered, and likely to exceed 2degC for the two high scenarios," said Co-Chair Thomas Stocker. "Heat waves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the Earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions," he added.
Projections of climate change are based on a new set of four scenarios of future greenhouse gas concentrations and aerosols, spanning a wide range of possible futures. The Working Group I report assessed global and regional-scale climate change for the early, mid-, and later 21st century.
"As the ocean warms, and glaciers and ice sheets reduce, global mean sea level will continue to rise, but at a faster rate than we have experienced over the past 40 years," said Co-Chair Qin Dahe. The report finds with high confidence that ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010.
Co-Chair Thomas Stocker concluded: "As a result of our past, present and expected future emissions of CO2, we are committed to climate change, and effects will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 stop."
Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the IPCC, said: "This Working Group I Summary for Policymakers provides important insights into the scientific basis of climate change. It provides a firm foundation for considerations of the impacts of climate change on human and natural systems and ways to meet the challenge of climate change." These are among the aspects assessed in the contributions of Working Group II and Working Group III to be released in March and April 2014. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report cycle concludes with the publication of its Synthesis Report in October 2014.
"I would like to thank the Co-Chairs of Working Group I and the hundreds of scientists and experts who served as authors and review editors for producing a comprehensive and scientifically robust summary. I also express my thanks to the more than one thousand expert reviewers worldwide for contributing their expertise in preparation of this assessment," said IPCC Chair Pachauri.
The Summary for Policymakers of the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (WGI AR5) is available at www.climatechange2013.org or www.ipcc.ch.
Key Findings
See separate Fact Sheet of Headline Statements from the WGI AR5 Summary for Policymakers, available at www.climatechange2013.org.
Background
Working Group I is co-chaired by Qin Dahe of the China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China, and Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern, Switzerland. The Technical Support Unit of Working Group I is hosted by the University of Bern and funded by the Government of Switzerland.
At the 28th Session of the IPCC held in April 2008, the members of the IPCC decided to prepare a Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). A Scoping Meeting was convened in July 2009 to develop the scope and outline of the AR5. The resulting outlines for the three Working Group contributions to the AR5 were approved at the 31st Session of the IPCC in October 2009.
The Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC WGI AR5 was approved at the Twelfth Session of IPCC Working Group I meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, 23 to 26 September 2013 and was released on 27 September.
The Final Draft of the Working Group I report (version distributed to governments on 7 June 2013), including the Technical Summary, 14 chapters and an Atlas of Global and Regional Climate Projections, will be released online in unedited form on Monday 30 September. Following copy- editing, layout, final checks for errors, and adjustments for changes in the Summary for Policymakers, the full report of Working Group I will be published online in January 2014 and in book form by Cambridge University Press a few months later.
The Working Group I assessment comprises some 2,500 pages of text and draws on millions of observations and over 2 million gigabytes of numerical data from climate model simulations. Over 9,200 scientific publications are cited, more than three quarters of which have been published since the last IPCC assessment in 2007.
In this IPCC assessment report, specific terms are used to indicate the assessed likelihood of an outcome or a result. For those terms used above: virtually certain means 99-100% probability, extremely likely: 95-100%, very likely: 90-100%, likely: 66-100%. For more information see the
IPCC uncertainty guidance note: https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/guidancepaper/ar5_uncertainty- guidance-note.pdf
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme established the IPCC in 1988.
"Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more 'radical' on Fox News than mass murder," said one healthcare advocate.
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade is facing calls to resign after suggesting earlier this week that the state should execute homeless people who decline help during a live broadcast.
Kilmeade made the comments during a Wednesday episode of Fox & Friends, during which the panel discussed the recent shocking video of the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska aboard a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a mentally ill homeless man, which has ignited a flurry of often racist vitriol on the right toward Black Americans and homeless people.
Another of the hosts, Lawrence Jones, claimed that the government has "given billions of dollars to mental health, to the homeless population," but that "a lot of them don't want to take the programs, a lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary."
Jones continued: "You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you, or you decide that you're going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now."
Kilmeade then interjected with his suggestion that instead of jail, they should be given "involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill 'em."
As one X user noted, Jones and co-host Ainsley Earhardt, "[didn't] even blink an eye" in response to this call for mass murder.
While the claim that homeless people often "refuse" abundant services is a common talking point, it is not borne out by data. According to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2023, more than three-fourths of direct service providers reported that they were forced to turn away homeless people due to staffing shortages.
But even in cases where homeless people are offered services—such as temporary shelter beds—and decline them, they often do so not because they prefer to be on the street but because shelters are often overcrowded and poorly maintained, or have restrictive rules that require them to separate from their families, pets, and belongings.
When homeless people are offered permanent shelter, they are comparatively much more likely to accept it. According to one 2020 study from UC San Francisco, 86% of "high-risk" chronically homeless people given access to permanent supportive housing were successfully housed and remained in their housing for several years, a much higher rate than those given temporary solutions.
But as Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X, "Universal healthcare, housing, and anti-poverty programs are considered more 'radical' on Fox News than mass murder."
Kilmeade's calls to execute the homeless were met with horror and disgust from advocates. Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, called for Kilmeade to resign.
“It is dangerous. It shows a lack of human compassion and it is really the worst possible time for that kind of language to be expressed,” Whitehead told the Irish Star.
Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaign manager with the National Homelessness Law Center in Washington, DC, noted in The Independent that Kilmeade's comments come as the Trump administration "is proposing government-run detention camps and massive psychiatric asylums" to house the homeless.
In August, the president launched a crackdown against homeless encampments in DC that advocates say has left hundreds of people with nowhere to go and dependent on overwhelmed city services. Meanwhile, his administration and recent Republican legislation have introduced massive cuts to housing funding for homeless people across the United States.
“America’s homeless population includes over a million children and tens of thousands of veterans, many of whom served in Iraq or Afghanistan,” said Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.). “Nobody deserves to be murdered by the government for mental illness or poverty. These Fox hosts are calling for mass murder—it’s sick.”
Kilmeade apologized for his comment on Sunday, describing it as an "extremely callous remark.” There is no indication from Fox News that Kilmeade will be subject to any disciplinary action over his remarks, which critics found noteworthy given the punishments other figures in mainstream media have faced for saying far less.
Photojournalist Zach D. Roberts pointed out that earlier this week, MSNBC fired contributor Matthew Dowd for criticizing the "hateful" and "divisive" rhetoric of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk shortly after he'd been assassinated.
"On MSNBC, a contributor got fired for lightly criticizing Charlie Kirk," Roberts said. "Meanwhile, on Fox News, Brian Kilmeade calls for the murder of homeless people for being homeless. Nothing has happened to him. I don't know if there can be a more obvious divide in politics."
"They are leveraging this platform to share untruths about vaccines to scare people," said one doctor Kennedy fired from the panel.
Health officials working under Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may seek to restrict access to the Covid-19 vaccine for people under 75 years old.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the officials plan to justify the move by citing reports from an unverified database to make the claim that the shots caused the deaths of 25 children.
The reports come from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a federal database that allows the public to submit reports of negative reactions to vaccines. As the Post explains, VAERS "contains unverified reports of side effects or bad experiences with vaccines submitted by anyone, including patients, doctors, pharmacists, or even someone who sees a report on social media."
As one publicly maintained database of "Batshit Crazy VAERS Adverse Events" found, users have reported deaths and injuries resulting from gunshot wounds, malaria, drug overdoses, and countless other unrelated causes as possible cases of vaccine injury.
As Beth Mole wrote for ARS Technica, "The reports are completely unverified upon submission, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff follow up on serious reports to try to substantiate claims and assess if they were actually caused by a vaccine. They rarely are."
Nevertheless, HHS officials plan to use these VAERS reports on pediatric deaths in a presentation to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) next week as the panel considers revising federal vaccine guidelines.
One person familiar with the matter told the Post that HHS officials attempted to interview some of the families who claimed their child died from the vaccine, but it is unclear how many were consulted and what other information was used to verify their claims.
In June, Kennedy purged that panel of many top vaccine experts, replacing them with prominent anti-vaccine activists, after previously promising during his confirmation hearing to keep the panel intact.
The Food and Drug Administration under Kennedy has already limited access to the Covid-19 vaccine. Last month, it authorized the vaccines only for those 65 and over who are known to be at risk of serious illness from Covid-19 infections.
While the vaccine is technically available to others, the updated guidance has created significant barriers, such as the potential requirement of a doctor's prescription and out-of-pocket payment, making it much harder for many to receive the shot.
The Post reports that ACIP is considering restricting access to the vaccination further, by recommending it only for those older than 75. It is weighing multiple options for those 74 and younger—potentially requiring them to consult with their doctor first, or not recommending it at all unless they have a preexisting condition.
Prior to the wide availability of Covid-19 vaccinations beginning in 2021, the illness killed over 350,000 people in the US. And while the danger of death from Covid-19 does increase with age, CDC data shows that from 2020 to 2023, nearly 47% of the over 1.1 million deaths from the illness occurred in people under 75.
According to the World Health Organization, the US reported 822 deaths from Covid over a 28-day period in July and August this year, vastly more deaths than anywhere else in the world. CDC data reported to ACIP in June shows that Covid deaths were lower among all age groups—including children—who received the mRNA vaccine.
Nicole Brewer, one of the vaccine advisers eliminated by Kennedy, lamented that Kennedy and his new appointees are ignoring the dangers of Covid-19 while amplifying the comparatively much lower risk posed by vaccines.
"They are leveraging this platform to share untruths about vaccines to scare people," she told the Post. “The U.S. government is now in the business of vaccine misinformation.”
ACIP is also reportedly mulling the rollback of guidelines for other childhood vaccines for deadly diseases like measles, Hepatitis B, and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).
While ACIP's guidelines are not legally binding, the Post writes that its meeting next week "is critical because the recommendations determine whether insurers must pay for the immunizations, pharmacies can administer them, and doctors are willing to offer them."
"If you haven't gotten your updated Covid vaccine by now, book an appointment fast before next week's ACIP meeting," warned Dr. David Gorski, the editor of the blog Science-Based Medicine. "After that, you might not be able to get one."
“Marco Rubio has claimed the power to designate people terrorist supporters based solely on what they think and say,” said one free speech advocate.
Free speech advocates are sounding the alarm about a bill in the US House of Representatives that they fear could allow Secretary of State Marco Rubio to strip US citizens of their passports based purely on political speech.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), will come up for a hearing on Wednesday. According to The Intercept:
Mast’s new bill claims to target a narrow set of people. One section grants the secretary of state the power to revoke or refuse to issue passports for people who have been convicted—or merely charged—of material support for terrorism...
The other section sidesteps the legal process entirely. Rather, the secretary of state would be able to deny passports to people whom they determine “has knowingly aided, assisted, abetted, or otherwise provided material support to an organization the Secretary has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.”
Rubio has previously boasted of stripping the visas and green cards from several immigrants based purely on their peaceful expression of pro-Palestine views, describing them as "Hamas supporters."
These include Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after Rubio voided his green card; and Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts student whose visa Rubio revoked after she co-wrote an op-ed calling for her school to divest from Israel.
Mast—a former soldier for the Israel Defense Forces who once stated that babies were "not innocent Palestinian civilians"—has previously called for "kicking terrorist sympathizers out of our country," speaking about the Trump administration's attempts to deport Khalil, who was never convicted or even charged with support for a terrorist group.
Critics have argued that the bill has little reason to exist other than to allow the Secretary of State to unilaterally strip passports from people without them actually having been convicted of a crime.
As Kia Hamadanchy, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, noted in The Intercept, there is little reason to restrict people convicted of terrorism or material support for terrorism, since—if they were guilty—they'd likely be serving a long prison sentence and incapable of traveling anyway.
“I can’t imagine that if somebody actually provided material support for terrorism, there would be an instance where it wouldn’t be prosecuted—it just doesn’t make sense,” he said.
Journalist Zaid Jilani noted on X that "judges can already remove a passport over material support for terrorism, but the difference is you get due process. This bill would essentially make Marco Rubio judge, jury, and executioner."
The bill does contain a clause allowing those stripped of their passports to appeal to Rubio. But, as Hamadanchy notes, the decision is up to the secretary alone, "who has already made this determination." He said that for determining who is liable to have their visa stripped, "There's no standard set. There’s nothing."
As Seth Stern, the director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, noted in The Intercept, the language in Mast's bill is strikingly similar to that found in the so-called "nonprofit killer" provision that Republicans attempted to pass in July's "One Big Beautiful Bill" Act. That provision, which was ultimately struck from the bill, would have allowed the Treasury Secretary to unilaterally strip nonprofit status from anything he deemed to be a "terrorist-supporting organization."
Stern said Mast's bill would allow for "thought policing at the hands of one individual."
“Marco Rubio has claimed the power to designate people terrorist supporters based solely on what they think and say,” he said, "even if what they say doesn’t include a word about a terrorist organization or terrorism."