We Can't Afford A Decade Of "Debate"
Washington Post 'reports' below.
The bad news didn't prevent them from making
$$$ off dozens of auto/oil ads in the day's edition.Didn't even ask the presidential wanna' bes what they thought of it.
Or, ask Clinton if he felt like a complete
idiot for doing nothing over the last 8 yrs.Global Warming Theory Affirmed
By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press
Thursday, October 26, 2000; Page A18
New evidence shows man-made pollution has "contributed substantially" to global warming and the Earth is likely to get hotter than previously predicted, a United Nations-sponsored panel of hundreds of scientists has found.The conclusions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are expected to widely influence climate debate over the next decade.
The report's summary, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press, was being distributed to government officials worldwide this week.
It is the first full-scale review and update of the state of climate science since 1995, when the same panel concluded there is "a discernible human influence" on the Earth's climate because of the "greenhouse" effect caused by the buildup of heat-trapping chemicals in the atmosphere.
The panel's latest assessment said "there is stronger evidence" yet on the human influence on climate and that it is likely that man-made greenhouse gases already "have contributed substantially to the observed warming over the last 50 years."
And the scientists, in revised estimates, concluded that if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed, the Earth's average surface temperatures can be expected to increase between 2.7 and nearly 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century, substantially more than estimated in its report five years ago.
It attributed the increase--from a range of 1.8 to 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit warmer in the 1995 assessment--mainly to a reduced influence now expected to be played by sulfate releases from industrial facilities and power plants. Such releases, which tend to have a cooling influence, will likely dramatically decline in industrial countries because of other environmental concerns, the scientists maintained.
The IPCC's third assessment report may receive final approval at a U.N. conference early next year. While some wording will certainly be changed by government policymakers, the central scientific conclusions may not be altered, several scientists who have been involved in the process said yesterday.
Three years ago in Kyoto, Japan, industrial nations tentatively agreed to curtail the release of greenhouse gases--mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels--to below 1990 levels as a first step to address global warming.
But none of the major industrial countries has yet ratified the agreement. Skeptics argue that the science remains inconclusive and that computer models used to predict climate change are not reliable enough to warrant a dramatic and possibly costly shift in energy use to curtail carbon emissions.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company