Urgent action call on US climate

[CShine]

Ten leading US climate scientists spoke on Tuesday of the need for more urgent action to tackle global warming. They warned that climate models might have grossly underestimated the rises in temperature that will soon occur.

The team called for a major shift to cleaner fuel technologies to constrain the rapid growth in greenhouse gases.

"We're in the middle of a large, uncontrolled experiment on the only planet we have," said Don Kennedy, the editor-in-chief of Science magazine.

"Global warming has taken place and at our present rate of doing business, there is going to be a lot more of it and it will have serious consequences," added the co-organiser of the open gathering of researchers in Washington DC.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3810291.stm

[phantom power]

1. I recall thinking, on the way home from seeing "Day After Tomorrow",

that the *most* unrealistic thing I saw in that movie was the speech from the VP at the very end, where he admits he was wrong and promises to change his ways.

[cally]

2. The day * stole the WH

I knew the world had lost an opportunity to move towards thwarting this crisis. The world is facing a crisis and we are fast running out of time to deal with this.

[Eloriel]

3. It may already be irreversible

I THINK there are some scientists who think that, but it's my personal fear about the issue.

I was channel surfing the other evening and caught a global warming show on Science network. While I'm not sure it had any "new" info (except perhaps some new details, data, etc.), it was pretty sobering to see just an hour's worth of honest coverage on the subject.

We are in deep shit, basically.

[lapfog_1]

4. Yes, there are many who think it was too late maybe 5 or 10

years ago. There is a theory that climate change happens slowly
until it reaches a "tipping point" or titration point, and then
major changes happen very quickly (in geologic time scales)...
climate change happens over 100 or 200 years, but the major climate
effect happens in 10 years. The Day After Tomorrow would have you
believe that change happens within days... but there is no evidence
that this can happen.

However, more and more climatologists are subscribing to the
gradual buildup to "sudden" change brought on by a disruption
to one of the earths major energy pathways (such as a major ocean
current) or the sudden release of tremendous amounts of stored
carbon such as those stored in the form of calcium carbonates
on the ocean floor, freed by a slight rise in ocean temperature.

Some have come to believe that we are too late... that if mankind
somehow woke up tomorrow and didn't burn even one more gallon of
fossil fuel or cut down one more acre of forest, it would still be
too late to stop trends such as the thinning of the polar caps and
gradual warming of the oceans before they trigger one of these
major climate change effects...

But models and historical record are all they really have to go on,
and these are not perfect by any means at predicting future events.
However, it is my belief that we still have time... to stop using
hydrocarbons, start using hydrogen, and start removing carbon
from the atmosphere (planting trees is a good way to start this).

But no one really knows... and Bushco is trying to stop one of
the major scientific organizations (NASA) from further study
by refocusing the NASA mission to stuff like return trips to the
moon and manned missions to mars (why, for cripes sake, robotic
missions are SOOO much more efficient and cheaper). The real
intent of the new focus is to defund the Mission to Planet Earth
and the remote sensing satellites and computer models and climate
specialists that come with it.

All the while, the other major US scientific establishment, the
DOE labs, are paying lip service to renewables... and are becoming,
again, nuclear weapons researchers and builders. Wonderful.

[cally]

5. I believe it's irreversible at this point

I think if Gore had taken office, that much of the crisis could have been adverted. If Kerry takes office, we can work towards mitigating the crisis. Sometimes I just can't believe that so many ignored all the evidence. I can be as cynical about politicians as most here, but it is still mind boggling that so many chose short term issues over global crisis.