Global warming inevitable for decades to come...

[Lindacooks]

...science conference told.

EXETER, England (AFP) - A climate conference opened to renewed concern about the worsening threat of global warming and appeals from Britain to its ally, the United States, not to stand on the sidelines.

<snip>

"What is certainly clear is that temperatures will go on rising... most of the warming we are expecting over the next few decades is now virtually inevitable."

Beckett warned: "No one country, not even one continent, can solve the problem by acting alone."

She hailed the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites), the UN's pact on carbon pollution, which takes life on February 16 after more than seven years of haggling to complete its rulebook and secure its ratification.

<snip>

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1538&e=7&u=/afp/scienceclimate

But, of course, this is what chimp thinks of the future 'we won't know - we'll all be dead.'

[Lorien]

1. Sadly, most people-including most DUers-see this as a non issue

I just talked to a fellow liberal a few minutes ago. I told him about these recent studies, and his response was "oh well, guess when our time is up, it's up. There's no use trying to do anything about it because there will always be more people who won't do anything-so whatever you do doesn't matter". Some attitude! I have a feeling that once we're all starving and freezing to death,locked in perpetual wars over scarce resources, we may look back on this time and wonder why we all had our collective heads up our asses!

[wadestock]

2. I've posted a number of times before on this....

I had contracts with someone on Gore's special environmental team to analyze the consequences of global warming. It was a star crew of 100 scientists and they ran extensive models.

The north pole will be gone between 2030 and 2050. There is some uncertainty in the estimate, but all scientists agreed on these rough figures.

What you will see happening will be the large chunks like the recent Rhode Island size piece happening more frequently. Ultimately, it's kind of like when you watch the snow on your roof melt. You'll go out and see it very slowly melt, and then all of the sudden you notice....hmmm....it's all gone.

In other words, we're still in the perceptibly unnoticeble stage. The news will be picking up the first stage of some pretty dramatic stuff probably in about 20 years.

We live in an incredibly fragile existence with incredibly stupid people. The planet is going to surprise the shit out of everyone.

[sw04ca]

3. Good...

...it's too cold here. :p

Seriously, I was never sold on the Kyoto Accord anyways. If something is to be done about man's tiny impact on global greenhouse gases, then you also need to target the developing world as well, instead of giving them a free pass. As it stands, it disproportionally attacks the North American economy, and encourages more cash bribes to the Third World. What's the point of kicking ourselves in the economy if it isn't even going to do anything?

[Minstrel Boy]

4. All I can say to that is -

no - I shouldn't say it.