Study: global warming wake-up call
If there’s any good reason to rethink your carbon footprint, it’s the worrisome findings from a six-year study on global climate change from Nobel Prize-winning experts. The authority–the U.N Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 2,000 scientists from 140 countries–released the culmination of its research on the effects of global warming last weekend. Here are some of the findings, but you can read the full report here.
Global greenhouse gases have risen by 70 percent since 1970, largely because of carbon dioxide emissions from factories, power plants and cars. The growth of atmospheric gases is responsible for global warming, or the rise of planetary temperatures by 1.3 degrees over the last century, according to the report. In fact, 11 of the last 12 years have been the warmest on record over the last century.
If we continue at today’s pace of greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures could go up another 10 degrees by the end of the century, which would cause extreme weather conditions, water shortages and melting glaciers. Also in that scenario, more than half of the planet’s species face the risk of extinction, according to the report. Even if temperatures go up by 2.7 degrees in that time, 20 percent to 30 percent of all plant and animal species could go the way of the dinosaur.
To cap the rise of global temperatures to 4 degrees, governments must work together to cut emissions by 50 percent to 85 percent by 2050, according to the U.N. panel. Though some states like California require similar reductions over that period, world governments must get involved. The United States and China need to work with other governments to set policy, invest in new technologies and improve energy efficiency to sidestep the worst of global warming, the report said.
Sure, the study is a wake-up call for governments on global warming. But it can also encourage everyone to think about how they can make a difference.
November 25th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
A friend referred me to this article recently, too, which talks specifically about the tremendous impact of pollution on the oceans that came out of the same IPCC report.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
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