Climate change is paving a “highway to extinction” which could see billions of people perish from hunger, malnutrition, disease, extreme weather events, heat-induced stress and lack of drinkable water by the year 2050, according to the latest report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due to be released in Belgium next Friday.
Climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in British Columbia told the Associated Press that the report maps out the consequences of climate change degree by degree, as temperatures rise. He said this presents a clear “highway to extinction, but on this highway there are many turnoffs. This is showing you where the road is heading. The road is heading toward extinction.”
Dr Weaver is one of the lead authors of the first IPCC report, issued in February. That report confirmed the strong scientific consensus that climate change is real and is caused by human activity related to greenhouse gas emissions.
If the global temperature rose by 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) up to 1.7 billion people would not have enough water. Infectious diseases and allergenic pollens would also substantially increase, and amphibians would begin to go extinct.
A further increase of 1 degree Celsius would see one-third of the world’s species approach extinction and at least 2 billion people facing death as a result of hunger, malnutrition, disease, extreme weather events, heat-induced stress and lack of drinkable water. Life on the planet would reach this threshold by the year 2050 if greenhouse gas emissions were not reduced substantially.
A further doubling of temperatures would see one-fifth of the world’s population affected by catastrophic flooding, up to 3.2 billion people facing extreme water shortages, and major extinctions around the globe.
Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Program, told Reuters that “We are talking about a potentially catastrophic set of developments.” He believes the public, governments and businesses now realize that the substantive debate is over and that there is overwhelming consensus on climate change in the scientific community.
“We’ve passed the tipping point,” he said. “It’s no longer about whether climate change is happening – but about how we deal with it.” The next report of the IPCC, due out in October 2007, will assess the range of options for limiting greenhouse gas emissions and otherwise mitigating climate change.
Reports of the IPCC draw on the research of 2,500 climate scientists and reviewers. Only conclusions and projections beyond dispute make it into the final drafts of the reports, which are then signed off by more than 120 governments.
A draft of the current IPCC report has been circulated to major media organizations and lists a range of potential climate change related consequences including:
vast tracts of low-lying nations, island-states and coastlines around the world being swallowed by rising sea levels;
Himalayan glaciers melting by the 2030s;
powerful heat waves recurring across the United States;
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef being destroyed; and
agricultural production plummeting world-wide (after a brief boost in Russia, Canada, New Zealand and Scandinavia).
Despite the dire warnings contained in this second report of the IPCC, scientists remain optimistic that humanity will act on climate change.
Oceanographer James McCarthy of HarvardUniversity, one of the key authors of the current report, is one such optimist. “The worst stuff is not going to happen because we can’t be that stupid,” he told Reuters. “Not that I think the projections aren’t that good, but because we can’t be that stupid.”
However, there are also scientists and climatologists who do not accept the doom scenario and feel that the claims made by IPCC are not valid.
To name a few scientists who have been directly associated with the IPCC report who do not necessarily share the "consensus" stance the media feeds up about the IPCC report. Interesting is the fact that the IPCC does not ask its reviewers whether they agree or not before including them in the 2500, as Dr. Lindzen states. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/LIND0710.html
Dr. Chris Landsea a researcher with the National Hurricane Center who was directly as an author and indirectly as a reviewer involved in the writing of the IPCC report resigned because of his views about how it had become politicized. http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
He also says that Dr. Trenberth, the lead author under the area of Dr. Landsea's expertise, makes claims about the connection of increased hurricane activity with global warming that has not yet been proven.
Written by Beam
on 4/12/2007
Jafco, Sid: You both raise important points. In science, there is always disagreement; it's a sign that the science is healthy. Journals, however, "formerly reputable" as they may be, have peer-reveiwers, they are not controlled by the "bad guys in the UN" and are NOT funded by the alarmists. Therefor, I suppose it IS IN fact likely, that the majority of scientists, and the IPCC are basically right. Putting reasonable controls on emmissions is thus a good idea. BUT I do agree this needs to be done one nation at a time- not controlled by the UN. The richer countries like the US need to take the lead- the rest of the world will follow naturally after we make alternate energy technology the cheap way to go. Jafco, as for your stab at my intelligence, touche. But have you considered how difficult it will be for the world government to control us, once we are not as dependent on all of the other member coutries, because we have locally produced, cheap alternative energy. "That is all"
Written by Abe Smyth
on 4/7/2007
The UN report is primarily written by UN Bureaucrats with consults from leading scientists, several of which have contradicting theories that are not mentioned. The earth is warming and it has cooled before. Remember back in the mid eighties when the "leading" scientists were predicting global cooling?? Scientists disagree among themselves about this subject, but the media and Al Gore promote hysteria. Volcanoes have a more profound effect on the climate than human activities.
Written by Sid Sanders
on 4/1/2007
Ian: You might do a little research. There are many scientists who "feel" (that may be the appropriate term; science is based on testing hypothesis, which leads to interim conclusions - but never PROOF) that the IPCC is wrong. The people getting paid in this debacle are scientists who take grants to do research to uphold the hypothesis of "destructive global warming" (I've seen research papers in formerly reputable scientific journals that have titles suggesting doom ahead, yet the actual data refute the title claim).
Get it in your head: These statists want to rule all, and "global warming" is their last best shot at taking control of the economies of the world, and at instituting (ultimately tyrannical) "world government" to save you from yourself. If you don't believe that, then turn off your computer for good and start walking to wherever you need to go. You'll contribute greatly to our salvation. Heh.
Written by jafco
on 4/1/2007
There are scientists and climatologists who "feel" that the claims made by IPCC are not valid? That’s news to me. Who are these people? And are they being paid $10,000 by the American Enterprise Institute to dispute the IPCC claims? This looks like a prime example of the media’s attempt to impose FALSE BALANCE in a debate that is well and truly over in the scientific community. Even Rupert Murdoch knows better these days.
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