Posted on 08/28/2004 12:26:22 AM PDT by Ol' Sparky
The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service
White House report says people cause global warming
13:10 27 August 04
NewScientist.com news service
People are responsible for the spike in global warming in the last 30 years, says a new US government report. The verdict, long accepted by most scientists, has encountered resistance from the Bush administration in the past, prompting experts to question if the president will now enact policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The report, titled Our Changing Planet, is part of a regular series that summarises recent and planned climate change research by 13 government agencies. It was released on Wednesday with a covering letter to Congress signed by the president's secretaries of commerce and energy, along with his science adviser.
The document reports that global warming in the first half of the 20th century, estimated at 0.2°C above pre-industrial temperatures, "was likely due to natural climate variation", including increased solar activity.
But the approximate 0.5°C rise over the second half of the century, most pronounced in the last 30 years, can only be explained when factors related to human activity, such as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, are taken into account.
Simulating change
"There's nothing else we can blame it on, really," says Kevin Trenberth, head of the climate analysis section at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, where computer simulations produced the result. "If we don't put the changes in carbon dioxide into our models, we don't get global warming out."
Thomas Graedel, an industrial ecologist at Yale University, has reviewed the US government's climate change research strategy and says the report's acknowledgment of a human influence on global warming is encouraging.
"Well over 98% of scientists competent in this area would agree with that," he told New Scientist.
But when a 2002 US government report to the United Nations drew the same conclusion, President Bush "pulled back" from the document, says biologist Anthony Janetos. He is director of the global change program at The Heinz Center, a non-profit environmental policy think-tank, which has some ties to Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of presidential candidate John Kerry.
The effect of humans on global warming in recent decades, according to a US government report (Image: Meehl et al, J. Climate, and Folland et al, Geophys. Res. Lett.) The effect of humans on global warming in recent decades, according to a US government report (Image: Meehl et al, J. Climate, and Folland et al, Geophys. Res. Lett.)
"The big question is what effect this will have on climate policy," Janetos told New Scientist. "The administration has been pretty consistent in saying they believe in voluntary actions [to cut greenhouse gas emissions]. I haven't seen any indication they've changed their mind, but if they had, that would be big news indeed."
Trenberth agrees, saying Bush's policy thus far has been to "take whatever nature throws at us, whether it's Hurricane Charley or droughts or the melting of permafrost" – events that global warming can intensify.
"Bush has said that if we do something about emissions, it will hurt the economy," Trenberth continues, and suggests developing renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Others experts have lobbied the government to regulate carbon dioxide through the Clean Air Act.
Administration officials could not be reached for comment, but James Mahoney, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere, said in a statement released with the report: "This research will help decision makers and managers in the US and other countries evaluate and respond to climate change."
It might just be better if he lost and some Reagan-like conservatives emerged in 2006 and 2008.
There'll be three or four Supreme Court nominations in the next four years. Won't make a difference if we elect a "true" conservative in 2008 if the Court's packed against us by Kerry nominees.
Oh man......
I don't understand this on many levels.
As political strategy, it doesn't make sense. Bush's administration has been so good at standing up for common sense policies that all the environmental whackos out there who have 'environmentalism' in the top ten issues they vote on will never vote for Bush even if he turned the Rose Garden into a Hemp Garden.
Yikes!
I wouldn't call them morons, but they do put politics above all else. The party of ideas is now nothing more than politics, just like the Rats, although slightly less worse.
This reminds me about something Albert Einstein is supposed to have said.
When he left Germany in 1933 the Nazis circulated a pamphlet where 100 German scientist attacked the theory of relativity as a baseless theory.
When asked about the document Einstein just laughed and said:
"If the theory is wrong it is enough with one scientist showing it to be so."
Science is not a majority decision and "New Scientist" should know that!
What in the world are you talking about???? Number one your headline does not even come close to matching the content of the story. Are you some dope smoker or something? Cause no where in that story does it say that the policy is going to change....With friends like you we need NO enemies
"slightly less worse" ! I like that.
We already know the first nominee will be pure hispandering. We'll probably get David Souters and Sandra Day O'Conners, and be lucky to get one good conservative out of the three or four.
I've used that phrase several times in the past couple of years and I never got a single complaint from the Bush fans, becasue they see that has a very good reason to vote for him, or for Republicans in general.
This is bureaucratic FUD, released every year by clinton and gore holdovers. They give their opinion, Bush will give his, there is no flip-flopping.
Your link doesn't work.
The Republicans have been in charge for three and a half years now. If what you say is true, it's a sign of bad management.
No link, but here it is: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996334
INCORRECT TITLE, it should be thus:
"White House report says people cause global warming"
He must mean right around Yale, that area.
"White House report says people cause global warming."
Well, that does it--everyone off the planet!
Better three Sandra Day O'Connor's who are only wrong 30% of the time than four Ruth Bader Ginsburgs who are wrong 99.97% of the time.
Not again! They've had someone do this to them before, the exact same thing.
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