Scientists Warn of Irreversible Damage From Global Warming
by RonChusidWhile the Bush Administration might wish to ignore science and pretend that global warming is not a problem, scientists are becoming increasingly uniform in acknowledging the problem. Many are concerned that we are rapidly approaching a point where the damage will be irreversible.
The Washington Post reports on this shift in the scientific view of the problem:
Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.
This “tipping point” scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.
There are three specific events that these scientists describe as especially worrisome and potentially imminent, although the time frames are a matter of dispute: widespread coral bleaching that could damage the world’s fisheries within three decades; dramatic sea level rise by the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to reverse; and, within 200 years, a shutdown of the ocean current that moderates temperatures in northern Europe.
The debate has been intensifying because Earth is warming much faster than some researchers had predicted. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, last week confirmed that 2005 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 1998. Earth’s average temperature has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would “imply changes that constitute practically a different planet.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html?ei=5090&en=51c46d7689bee520&ex=1296190800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: January 29, 2006
The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.
Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. “They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public,” he said.
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What amazes me to no end is this idea that “the public,” as in WE THE PEOPLE, aren’t to be told the facts about anything. Did anyone hear Paul Bremer’s lame excuses for why his public assessment of the situation on the ground in Iraq differed so extremely from what he said at the time vs what he’s said in his book?
His response was… god I wish I had the exact quote… along the lines of ‘he was working for the administration, they were told the truth has he saw it, and his responsibility was to them, not the American people’ ie., he had no problem with the fact that he said on thing publically and one thing privately.
I’m not being articulate here, unfortunately, just sputtering. But hey, listen up Bush misAdministration, the White House is not a corporation and I am not one of your workers.
….and by all that is held dear in the Constitution… the Bush misAdministration and their Corrupt Corporate Backers will NOT TAKE THE JUDICIARY.