Posted on 12/05/2007 7:23:56 PM PST by ricks_place
Over 200 of the leading climate scientists impelled government leaders to take radical measures to slow down global warming as "there is no time to lose."
A petition from at least 215 climate scientists calls for the world to cut in half greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It is directed at a conference of diplomats meeting in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate the next global warming treaty. The petition, obtained by The Associated Press, is to be announced at a press conference there Wednesday night.
The appeal from scientists follows a petition last week from more than 150 global business leaders also demanding the 50 percent cut in greenhouse gases. That is the estimate that scientists calculate would hold future global warming to a little more than a 3-degree Fahrenheit increase and is in line with what the European Union has adopted.
In the past, many of these scientists have avoided calls for action, leaving that to environmental advocacy groups. That dispassionate stance was taken during the release this year of four separate reports by the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
But no more.
"It's a grave crisis, and we need to do something real fast," said petition signer Jeff Severinghaus, a geosciences professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. "I think the stakes are way way too high to be playing around."
The unprecedented petition includes scientists from more than 25 countries and shows that "the climate science community is essentially fed up," said signer Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in Canada. It includes many co-authors of the intergovernmental climate change panel reports, directors of major American and European climate science research institutions, a Nobel winner for atmospheric chemistry and a winner of a MacArthur "genius" award.
"A lot of us scientists think the problem needs a lot more serious attention than it's getting and the remedies have to be a lot more radical," said Richard Seager, a scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
The organizers of the petition two Australians, two Germans and an American would not comment about their efforts before their 11 p.m. EST (0400 GMT) press conference. But several scientists who signed on talked of losing patience.
"Action needs to be taken and needs to be taken now," said Marika Holland, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research who signed on. "The longer we wait, the worse it's going to become."
Negotiators in Bali are working on the initial groundwork for a treaty that would take effect after 2012, the expiration date of the Kyoto Protocol, a climate treaty the United States did not sign. However, no one expects concrete results at the closed-door sessions.
NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt, who signed the petition, said "the time for half-measures and the time for voluntary agreements and the time for arguing about 1 percent here and 1 percent there those things are no longer relevant."
Schmidt noted while scientists have been dismissed by some as unrealistic, the call for a 50 percent emissions cut by business leaders "helps give credence to the idea that it's achievable."
Policy analysts, who were not part of either petition, split on how meaningful the two petitions are.
What is happening is people are agreeing "that the cost of inaction is on the high side and the cost of action is affordable," said Joseph Romm, a policy analyst at the liberal think-tank Center for American Progress, energy business consultant and trained physicist.
But Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute said "scientists are in no position to intelligently guide public policy on climate change." Scientists can lay out scenarios, but it is up to economists to weigh the costs and benefits and many of them say the costs of cutting emissions are higher than the benefits, he said.
Granger Morgan, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, said he sees "a growing realization among a wide variety of players that we've got to stop talking about this and start some action." But, he added, "I'm not going to hold my breath that we're going to get anything."
T”he climate scientists advocating this superregulation of industry are socialists.”
Right. Reducing greenhouse emissions = reducing evil profits.
A blast of hot air at Bali’s climate conference
UK Telegraph | December 03 2007
Posted on 12/03/2007 4:51:48 PM EST by knighthawk
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1934131/posts
Craig files 45 changes to warming bill
Idaho Statesman | 12/5/07 | ERIKA BOLSTAD
Posted on 12/05/2007 11:17:53 PM EST by ricks_place
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1935448/posts
Giant Squid’s California Migration Product Of Warming
PRAVDA | 12/04/-7 | AP
Posted on 12/05/2007 10:37:30 PM EST by ricks_place
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1935432/posts
IPCC Falsifies Sea Level Data
Reason McLucas Blog Hosted by London Telegraph | December 5, 2007 | ReasonMcLucus
Posted on 12/05/2007 4:59:51 PM EST by kathsua
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1935260/posts
Japan climate proposal worries activists
(Trouble in a Green Paradise ahead? Go Japan! Pull OUT!)
AP on Yahoo | 12/5/07 | Charles J. Hanley - ap
Posted on 12/05/2007 5:53:52 PM EST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1935290/posts
Quick! Cut back all fossil fuel consumption by 50% immediately! And while you are at it, increase jobs for the poor and lower middle class Democrat voters who will vote to put politicians/technocrats in power who will vote to increase fuel taxes by hundreds of percent to force consumption cuts aforementioned... but since the economy will crash and unemployment will skyrocket as a result, those Democrat voters will undoubtedly vote out the same clueless aparatchiks and vote back in someone sane, unless those ecotechnototalitarians
abrogate and defile the Constitution, and suspend all elections and civil rights in a desperate and criminal seizure of power. In that case... never mind.
As usual, follow the money.
Here's the proper interpretation of the facts:
Shake-down artists (global business leaders) increase kick-backs to other shake-down artists (UN tin-pot dictators) to increase pressure on other shake-down artists (UN mystics aka 'scientists using GIGO computer models') to declare a grave crisis and prophesy the future.
I'd be curious to know the actual disciplines of these 'climate scientists', and to know if their livelihood is dependent upon this 'government action'.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.