Monday, December 11, 2006

Global warming still a reality... even for the deniers.



The Telegraph reports that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has revised its predictions on human effect on global warming. The overall estimate is now reduced by 25% from the previous 2001 report.



To suggest, however, that such refinements in figures is all good news would be to ignore that the IPCC is still forecasting near disaster for the future with a global temperature rise of 4.5 degrees C over the next 100 years.



Sea level rises are expected to less than previously predicted. Before anyone jumps all over that, it should be noted that the rise in sea level due to ice melt has always been an estimate at best. The report is issuing refined figures because of better data and a better understanding of climate behaviour. And, the IPCC issued this caution:


Climate change sceptics are expected to seize on the revised figures as evidence that action to combat global warming is less urgent.
Sure enough, the ink wasn't dry on the pages of the Telegraph and US Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) opened his yap.


We are all skeptics now. It appears that the UN is now acknowledging what an increasing number of scientists who study the climate have come to realize: Predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming are simply unsustainable.
I guess the only part Inhofe reads is the headlines.


One leading UK climate scientist, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity surrounding the report before it is published, said: "The bottom line is that the climate is still warming while our greenhouse gas emissions have accelerated, so we are storing up problems for ourselves in the future."


Do the Republicans have a course to train people how to be that stupid?

Oops! I guess they do.

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