02.04.07
UN Finds Global Warming Has Heated Up
 On February 2, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report in Paris entitled, Climate Change 2007. In this report, 2,500 scientists from 130 countries found that the trend toward dangerous global warming was started by human activity, beginning with the dramatic increase in the use of fossil fuel during the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800’s. A draft of this relevant report, which is the fourth such assessment conducted by the IPCC, was circulated among major news organizations over the past week.
According to the report, consequences of global warming include more warm days and less cold ones; tropical storms and hurricanes with increased intensity; more heat waves; and higher sea levels. Just consider what happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina due to the nature of the hurricane and the level of the waters. In fact, Torbjorn Tornqvist, geoscientist at Tulane University, stated that, “We’ve seen in the past century, sea level is rising four times faster than in the preceding 1,000 years. We have to push harder [New Orleans] than anyone else in the United States to reverse the problem of global warming because we are facing that problem here first.â€
The UN report indicated that sea levels will continue to dramatically increase over the next 1,000 years. Global temperature has risen 1.5 degrees over the past 150 years and a further increase of 2 degrees is anticipated over the next 50 years. Furthermore, this report does not even account for the recent breaking off of major polar ice sheets. Professor Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University said to the Associated Press that the reports don’t, “take into account the gorillas – Greenland and Antarctica. I think there are unpleasant surprises as we move into the 21st century.â€
Right now a dozen states are suing the Federal Government in the US Supreme Court to force the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. The Supreme Court is due to make its decision in June. In his State of the Union address, Bush simply referred to “the serious challenge of global climate change.†He has actually resisted any binding measures to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and in 2001, withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. In fact, scientific information rarely flows from administration to the public, as referred to by NASA climate scientist Dr. Jim Hansen, who found the Bush administration “secretiveâ€. I certainly agree that the Bush administration is secretive on many levels, to their benefit and to the vast detriment of the uninformed public.
After all, why should Bush exercise his control to help the environment at a substantial financial loss to his cronies? Fossil fuel benefits the good old boys network in profits from sales, as well as in profits from from the resulting war. This network is intact, power and money are the motivating factors and the environment seems to be irrelevant in the big scheme. Countries are actually at war over a substance that is destroying the quality of life on earth for our species After all, the earth will eventually spit us out and rejuvenate itself just as it has done in the past and we will be the ones to suffer at our own hand.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of IPCC, wants the report to inspire governments into action internationally. “I hope this report will shock people, governments into taking more serious action, as you really can’t get a more authentic and a more credible piece of scientific work.†The rest of the intelligent human life on earth also hopes that governments will sit up, take notice and start positive change for our world so the generations to come can enjoy it.
