The G8 summit is coming in a month. Global Climate change is expected to be one of the central issues discussed. In anticipation of the summit, the Science Academies of many of the leading industrialized nations issued a joint statement yesterday (June 7) urging the leaders of their countries to make a commitment to immediately begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Scientist Online is calling the statement “unprecedented.”
Signatories of the statement include Britain’s Royal Society and the national science academies of France, Russia, Germany, the United States, Japan, Italy, Canada, Brazil, China, and India.
The statement urges the G8 nations to find cost-effective steps that can be taken immediately toward substantial and long-term reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions. No doubt the Kyoto hold-out U.S. is the main target of this statement.
More across the jump…
from The Scientist Online
May said that the current US policy on climate change was misguided. “The Bush administration has consistently refused to accept the advice of the US National Academy of Sciences [NAS]… Getting the US onboard is critical because of the sheer amount of greenhouse gas emissions they are responsible for.”
Right… BushCo and science are like oil and water.
“We don’t want to hear any more statements from G8 leaders to the effect that we don’t know enough about the science to be certain,” Royal Society spokesman Bob Ward told The Scientist. “We want all the leaders to accept that we do know enough about the science to take action on climate change.”
We’ve known enough for 10 years or more. This comes on the heals of the revelation that a BushCo aid altered greenhouse emissions reports (LINK).
In part, the statement says
Environmental group Friends of the Earth finds fault with the statement in that it doesn’t include any targets or a timetable. Friends of the Earth believes dramatic emissions reductions must be made in the next decade or we face “catastrophic climate change.”
This is awesome, but I have to say, I am way too skeptical about anything being done, especially in the U.S.
And no, I don’t mean Bush Administration crap.
Every time my magazine gets so much hate mail from deluded idiots — the global warming deniers — and these are only the ones who subscribe to a science magazine! If they don’t want to believe the science in front of their eyes, I do not think they will EVER accept the notion that humans are a major contributing factor to global warming.
I dunno – we just got another avalanche of climate-change-naysayers just the other day…and I’m feeling depressed and helpless.
I meant to say…”Every time my magazine runs a story on global warming, we get reams of hatemail.”
Or maybe nothing will be done because our country is being controlled by people seeking the end of the world. With the rapture on its way, who cares about the climate?
now that’s a frightening thought.
Actually, I am curious. Do you know anyone who has been convinced that global warming is happening and that it’s caused by human activity?
What kind of arguments work??
I know lots of people who believe global warming is real. They all share one characteristic in common: they accept science as the best way of knowing about the natural world.
I once tried this analogy to no avail with an unbeliever: We are sitting on a railroad track and the train is coming. We may not know what direction it is coming from or whether it is a steam engine, gas engine, or electric engine, but it is going to run us over regardless. Let’s get off the tracks first, and then we can find out the rest of the details once we are out of harm’s way.
They simply stated that they didn’t believe in trains.
The most frustrating are the people who say, “The climate has always been in a state of flux for a bunch of different reasons. How do you know we wouldn’t be in an ice age right now if it weren’t for the greenhouse gasses? And how do you know it wont just increase the growing season or make Siberia warm enough for farming?”
They are right that the climate has always been in flux. How do I know a warmer world wont be a good thing? I don’t 100%, but most climate scientists think it will be devastating. Why take that chance? I know the climate is good as is, so if it aint broke…?
Here’s the thing – the climate is a chaotic system, it’s true.
Which is why it’s a wonderful idea to minimize the amount of screwing around with it we do. Why? Because we can’t predict the results of our actions. Would you get in a car and drive if you had no idea what the probability was of a cliff suddenly materializing in your path because you’d made a string of decisions that you could not, at the time, tell were bad?
No. Instead, you’d want to find some alternate way of getting where you’re going that used the car as little as possible!
As for someone who didn’t believe in global warming then did that would be, I’m ashamed to say, me. What changed my opinion?
I read the science.
Not really helpful in general, is it?
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It’s difficult enough within the scientific community, to get all facts straight as to a rapid upswing in temperatures at certain levels in the atmosphere.
I suggest to separate in the debate, the blame and means to alleviate the global warming effects.
Oui aka @dKos as creve coeur and new creve coeur
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