Global Warming

PRESTIGIOUS SCIENCE ASSOCIATION ISSUES WARNING ON HUMAN-INDUCED GLOBAL WARMING
February 17, 2007

The board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of the prestigious journal Science and the world's largest general scientific society, today issued its first statement on global warming, attributing the Earth's recent warming to human activity. "The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society," the statement read. The release noted that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are at their highest concentration in 650,000 years, and AAAS president John Holdren added that by the end of this century, global temperatures could head for levels not seen in millions of years. The recent statement from AAAS marks another high-profile announcement this year from scientific and environmental groups calling for an immediate reduction of the causes of man-made climate change. AAAS concluded that there must be a definitive political push to address global warming. "We are already experiencing global climate change. It is time to muster the political will for concerted action. Stronger leadership at all levels is needed. The time is now. We must rise to the challenge." Scientists recognized the important political implications of the statement. Susanne Mosner of the National Center for Atmospheric Research stated: "The statement is really strengthening the case and political momentum for cutting greenhouse emissions."
2006 was the hottest year ever recorded in the United States. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere "reached a record high in 2005," the United Nations reported in November, warning that "global average concentrations of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide" will be even higher in 2006. In 2000, carbon dioxide emissions were rising less than 1 percent annually. Today they are rising more than 2.5 percent annually, with 7.9 billion metric tons of carbon added globally in 2005 alone (up from 6.8 billion in 2000). The Energy Department’s latest report projects America’s carbon dioxide emissions will increase by one third from 2005 to 2030. Meanwhile, U.S. dependence on OPEC nations for oil imports "has risen to its highest level in 15 years." In September 2006, 70 percent of oil consumed in the United States came from foreign sources, up from 58 percent in 2000. The impact of these historic environmental changes is already being felt, and will grow more severe in the years to come. Arctic sea ice coverage in March 2006 "was the lowest in winter since measurements by satellite began in the early 1970s," and a team of NASA-funded scientists found that ice is melting so fast in the Arctic "that the North Pole will be in the open sea in 30 years." Research published this year found increasing evidence that "global warming is causing stronger hurricanes," that rainfall could drop by 20 percent by the end of the century, threatening the world's deserts "as never before"; that climate change has spurred the recent "sudden and dramatic” increase in the number of wildfires and the length of the wildfire season, and will directly "increase the risk of forest fires, droughts and flooding over the next two centuries"; one study found climate change will have a devastating effect on America's bread basket, shifting crop production northward into Canada.
IPCC ISSUES COMPREHENSIVE REPORT ON SCIENCE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
On February 2, 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a summary of the current science of climate change. The summary, directed at policymakers, is based on six years of review of scientific literature by experts from around the world, convened under the auspices of the IPCC's Working Group I. The report calls the evidence of climate warming "unequivocal." The report finds that rates of both observed warming and sea level rise have accelerated over the past century, and discusses other important changes being observed, including more intense precipitation in some regions, prolonged droughts in others, and intensification of hurricanes in some tropical regions.
Pew Center's coverage of the report
Pew Center's summary of the report (93 KB pdf)
Pew Center statement on the report
Facts and Figures
"Sea Level Rise - The State of the Science", a new Pew Center fact sheet
Hurricanes and Global Warming Q&A

ENERGY -- A NEW VISION FOR AMERICA'S ENERGY FUTURE
September 19, 2006
Former Vice President Al Gore delivered a major speech on global warming at New York University law school, calling for an immediate freeze on carbon dioxide emissions to fight the effects of global warming. "This is an opportunity for bipartisanship and transcendence, an opportunity to find our better selves and in rising to meet this challenge, create a better brighter future," Gore said. A new report by the Center for American Progress and the Worldwatch Institute envisions a clean and efficient energy system which would decrease our dependence on foreign oil, increase domestic security, shrink trade deficits, revitalize rural communities, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and curb the emissions that cause global warming. The study cites dynamic growth in renewable energy sectors that should be utilized to "turn abundant domestic sources -- including solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, biomass and ocean energy -- into transportation fuels, electricity, and heat." This growth is "driving down costs and spurring rapid advances in technologies" and opening up the possibility of a decentralized and diversified energy market. The study features policy proposals that would help realize this possibility by "jumpstarting the new energy industries while minimizing the cost to American taxpayers" and reversing outdated policies which subsidize fossil fuels. With nine out of 10 voters supportive of plans to encourage alternative energy, the time for reform is now.
Ice Caps Are Melting Even in Winter, Global Warming Evidence Mounts
New Movie: The Great Warming
"Wacky Weather" Is Deadly Global Heating
First Half of 2006 is Warmest on Record for the United States
At the halfway point, 2006 is shaping up to be the warmest year on record for the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Based on preliminary data, the average January to June temperature for the contiguous United States was 51.8 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 3.4 degrees F above the average temperature during the 20th century.
The heat is taxing electrical power systems while a continued drought is depleting hydropower resources. In June, 45 percent of the contiguous U.S. was in moderate to-extreme drought, an increase of 6 percent from May, while 27 percent was in severe-to-extreme drought, an increase of 7 percent from May. This year is also shaping up to be the sixth warmest on record for the globe, with January to June average temperatures at 0.9 degrees F above the 20th-century mean. See the NOAA press release and the full analysis from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.
In case you haven't noticed, July turned out to be a warm one as well, with a heat wave setting records across much of the country. So far, U.S. utilities are meeting the challenge without any major power disruptions, although many are calling on their customers to conserve energy. Electricity supplies are strained and new electrical demand records are being set from coast to coast. But don't take our word for it, see the press releases from the Long Island Power Authority and the California Independent System Operator (PDF 26 KB). Download Adobe Reader.
Confirmation of Earth's Rising Temperature
For the past couple of years, global warming skeptics have been bashing climate researcher Michael Mann, claiming that fraud or errors created his so-called "hockey stick" graph showing dramatic increases in the temperature of the earth in the last decade. Now a panel of top climate scientists convened by the National Academies of Science (the leading scientific association in the United States) has vindicated Mann's conclusions in a new, 155-page report which finds that the Earth was hotter in the last few decades of the 20th century than it has been over the last 400 years and possibly longer.
SOURCE: National Academies of Sciences, June 22, 2006 http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=11676
Heat Wave makes Global Warming 'Convert' out of Pat Robertson
August 4, 2006
Yesterday, on the 700 Club, evangelical leader Pat Robertson declared himself "a convert" on the issue of global warming. Robertson said that he has "not been one who believed in global warming in the past." But now, he said, "it is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air." Robertson implored, "we really need to do something on fossil fuels." But Robertson isn't the only one feeling the heat and thinking twice. "More Americans than ever disapprove of President Bush's handling of the environment," according to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, which found 56 percent believe the administration is doing too little protect the environment, a 15 percent jump since 2001. Roughly three-quarters of Americans say they have had to cut back on household spending because of devastating energy bills and the rising cost of oil. One respondent noted, "At some point you've just got to look at things realistically and realize we're not leaving much of a legacy for our grandchildren if we don't address these issues."

The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's trade group, said: "While consensus on climate change remains a work in progress, we do know enough to take the risk seriously and to rule out inaction as an option". Science magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth's temperature is rising due to human activity.

GLOBAL WARMING -- NEW REPORTS DETAIL HUMAN CAUSES AND DEVASTATION OF WARMING: A pair of scientific reports released June 22, 2006 underscored the scientific reality behind the causes of global warming and the threat that it poses. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a major 155-page report that found that Earth’s rising temperature “is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia,” and that “human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming.” The NAS study takes into account variations in temperature due to natural causes and concludes that the current warming trend is different. Human activity is driving it. A second major climate study released yesterday by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) underscored the devastating impact of global warming. The report found, "Global warming accounted for around half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the tropical North Atlantic in 2005, while natural cycles were only a minor factor." The 2005 North Atlantic hurricane season was the most active in recorded history, and caused an unprecedented level of damage.
The release of frozen methane due to the surprisingly rapid melting of arctic permafrost is a largely unrecognized looming cataclysm. Life on earth almost disappeared 251 million years ago, and again 55 million years ago, apparently due to massive releases of methane. A runaway, unstoppable, chain reaction was evidently caused by a temperature rise of 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius). Based on the enormous study of Global Warming, coordinated by scientists at Oxford University, without radically new technology that temperature rise could occur even before 2050. Burning our remaining fossil fuels at the current rate could eliminate human, and most other, life on earth in less than 50 years! — Mark Goldes
An Inconvenient Truth
Source: Center for American Progress Action FundMay 25, 2006
Human activity is polluting the earth and if we fail to take action now, our planet could be sent "into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and killer heat waves." But some of the damage is already done. The Arctic ice shelf is melting, polar bears are drowning, and severe weather occurrences like hurricanes and heat waves are taking thousands of lives and causing millions in damages each year. In the face of strong scientific consensus on the dangers and sources of global warming, many members of the Bush administration and the right wing continue to insist it is all part of a harmless natural process. Yesterday President Bush said, "[L]et's quit the debate about whether greenhouse gases are caused by mankind or by natural causes; let's just focus on technologies that deal with the issue." But an effective solution will not be found without acknowledging the human role in greenhouse gas emissions. "An Inconvenient Truth," Vice President Al Gore's new documentary that opened yesterday in New York and Los Angeles, challenges these myths and provides striking evidence that "[h]umanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb." While the situation is severe, it's not hopeless. See how you can take action in the fight against global warming and help America kick its oil habit. CLIMATE CHANGE IS HERE: Nineteen of the 20 hottest years on record have occurred since 1980, with 2005 marking the warmest yet. But proof of global warming goes beyond higher temperatures. In the far north, Inuit hunters have fallen through ice, and villages have lost ground to swelling seas. In the tropics, deluged islanders are making plans for permanent evacuation. Seas worldwide have risen four to eight inches in the last century; Massachusetts alone has lost 65 acres a year. Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places such as the Colombia Andes, which is 7,000 feet above sea level. Scientists are considering creating an official Category 6 for hurricanes "as evidence mounts that hurricanes around the world have sharply worsened over the past 30 years -- and all but a handful of hurricane experts now agree this worsening bears the fingerprints of man-made global warming." A study published in Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 1993 and 2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus the earth's temperature is rising due to human activity. In 2005, a top group of scientists convened by British Prime Minster Tony Blair met and examined the catastrophic impacts of global average temperature increases. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program, an intergovernmental agency, also concluded that humans are driving the warming trend through greenhouse gas emissions, noting "the observed patterns of change over the past 50 years cannot be explained by natural processes alone, nor by the effects of short-lived atmospheric constituents such as aerosols and tropospheric ozone alone." IT WILL GET WORSE: Global warming is bad news for human life, despite the myths repeated by the right wing. "When it's not even clear that the warming we've seen is hurting us -- many argue that it's a boon, citing its benefits to agriculture and its potential to make severe climates more hospitable," writes National Review associate editor Jason Lee Steorts. But global warming won't just raise the earth's temperature a few degrees. The reality will be, as Gore puts it, "what someone has called 'a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.'" We "have seen the impact of a couple of hundred thousand refugees from an environmental crisis. Imagine 100 million or 200 million," said Gore yesterday on NBC's Today Show, talking about how many people could be displaced if global warming continues at its current pace. Assuming that it does, an increase in heat waves and a deterioration in air quality "will increase the risk of mortality and morbidity, principally in older age groups and the urban poor," according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Increases "in climate extremes (storms, floods, cyclones, etc.) associated with climate change would cause physical damage, population displacement, and adverse effects on food production, freshwater availability and quality, and would increase the risks of infectious disease epidemics, particularly in developing countries" and "negative health impacts are anticipated to outweigh positive health impacts." American Progress President and CEO John Podesta also notes the effect global warming will have on the world's poor: "Between 260 and 320 million people are likely to find themselves living in malaria infested areas by 2080," and in "Southern Africa and parts of the Horn, rainfall is predicted to decline by 10 percent by 2050, worsening already serious food shortages."THE ADMINISTRATION IS IGNORING IT: President Bush will be ignoring "An Inconvenient Truth" when the movie opens in the nation's capital, just as he has ignored the inconvenient truth of global warming throughout his administration. In 2000, candidate Bush pledged to "establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide." That promise was short-lived. One year later, Bush backed away from his campaign promise and in 2003, his administration ruled that carbon dioxide, the chief cause of global warming, was not a pollutant and did not need to be regulated. The President still thinks that there is a "fundamental debate" over whether climate change is "manmade or natural," ignoring the consensus of the scientific community and the opinion of his own Environmental Protection Agency, which in 2002 stated that global warming "is real and has been particularly strong within the past 20 years...due mostly to human activities." Bush's beliefs about climate change have gone beyond ignorance and have led to his administration's active suppression of the truth. In 2002 and 2003, the Bush administration allowed Philip A. Cooney, a former Exxon lobbyist with no scientific background, to doctor the findings of some of the government's premiere climate documents, "play[ing] down links between such [greenhouse gas] emissions and global warming." James Hansen, head of NASA's top institute studying the climate, recently said that he was being censored by the Bush administration from speaking out on global warming. "In my more than three decades in the government I've never witnessed such restrictions on the ability of scientists to communicate with the public," said Hansen. THE OIL INDUSTRY IS FABRICATING 'SCIENCE': The overwhelming evidence on the urgency of global warming doesn't stop some skeptics from denying climate change. The oil industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) have led the public relations effort to undercut the impact of Gore's film. CEI has received $1.6 million from ExxonMobil since 1998 and accepted funding from other oil companies through the American Petroleum Institute. Earlier this month, CEI released a set of misleading ads claiming "Greenland's glaciers are growing." Actually, the study cited by the ad found there was an increase in snow accumulation on Greenland's interior. Other studies show that glaciers are thinning on Greenland's coastal regions. Despite what CEI tried to argue, these findings fit with theories of global warming because "the thinning of the margins and growth in the interior Greenland is an expected response to increased temperatures and more precipitation in a warmer climate. These results present no contradiction to the accelerated sliding near the coasts." Another scientist whose research CEI used in the ad blasted the group for misrepresenting his research: "These television ads are a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate. They are selectively using only parts of my previous research to support their claims." The NCPA, which has received $390,000 from Exxon since 1998, has resorted to scare tactics, unleashing Sterling Burnett on Fox News to compare watching Gore to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Fox News has also jumped on the alarmist bandwagon, airing a segment asking whether "An Inconvenient Truth" could "destroy our economy." In reality, a program to develop new sources of energy and rebuild our transportation infrastructure will create new jobs and stimulate the economy.
THE TASK AT HAND: According to the "vast majority of international scientists and peer-reviewed reports," climate change is a "serious growing threat." Unless concrete steps are taken to mitigate the problem, "no country will be immune from the extreme weather events and rising sea levels that scientists predict will occur." The Task Force recommends 10 concrete but practical steps aimed at ensuring that global warming does not exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. If global warming exceeds that point, "the risks to human societies and ecosystems grow significantly." The recommendations of the Task Force include: taking greater advantage of existing low and zero-carbon technologies, creating a global emissions trading market and, for G8 countries, producing 25 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2025.
Burning dirty fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas) to power cars and homes and industry releases heat-trapping global warming gases into the atmosphere, which alters the climate of the planet and throws weather systems out of balance. Scientists warn that global warming will increase the temperature of ocean water that fuels hurricanes, leading to stronger winds, heavier rains and larger storm surges, and that doing nothing to reduce global warming pollution will increase the severity of these costly extreme weather events. Extreme weather events cost Americans nearly $20 billion in 2002.
While the U.S. is responsible for one-quarter of all the pollution that causes global warming, politicians in Washington have taken no steps to reduce global warming emissions, and the U.S. refused to join the 128 countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol. This international global warming pollution reduction treaty seeks to reduce emissions about five percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012 by setting up an emissions trading system and will officially go into effect February 16, 2005.
The good news is that we already have technologies to dramatically reduce global warming pollution through clean energy solutions. We can make our cars, homes and buildings more energy efficient and switch to clean renewable energy such as solar and wind power. The U.S. Climate Stewardship Act seeks to cap global warming emissions at 2000 levels by 2010, by setting up an emissions trading system and promoting clean energy solutions.
THE HIGH PRICE OF DOING NOTHING: Addressing the climate change problem does not, in Blair's view, involve "drastic cuts in growth or standards of living." In fact, investing in low and zero-emissions technologies "provides the prospect of significant business and economic opportunities." Meanwhile, the costs of doing nothing are severe. Recently, the most extensive scientific modeling on global warming ever conducted "found that global temperatures could rise by up to 11°C (19°F) if emissions of carbon dioxide continue unabated." That is more than five times the increase the Task Force determined could have severe impacts in the form of flooding and extreme weather events.
KILLING TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE: Efforts to reduce global warming go hand in hand with enhancing oil security. Low and zero-carbon energy sources, including many biofuels, are renewable and can be produced domestically – reducing our dependence on foreign oil. (Brazil, for example, already derives one-third of its transport fuel from ethanol produced from sugar cane.) The Task Force recommends that the United States and other major industrialized nations "divert their agricultural subsidies to biofuels instead of food crops."
Speaking at the World Economic Forum on January 25, 2005, Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of President Bush's closest allies, made his position crystal clear: "if America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda too." High on Blair's agenda is enlisting the cooperation of all countries to tackle the problem of global warming. America and Australia are the only two industrialized nations that have not ratified the Kyoto accords, the global agreement to limit emissions of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming, which is scheduled to take effect on Feb. 16. Blair's specific recommendations for action mirrored those just released by the International Climate Change Task Force co-chaired by British MP Stephen Byers and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and co-sponsored by the Center for American Progress. American Progress CEO John Podesta said Blair's strong advocacy, along with bipartisan support in Congress, could persuade the administration "to come back to the table and get involved with this huge challenge facing humanity." Read the full report.
The National Academy of Sciences said global warming could lead to "large, abrupt and unwelcome" changes in the climate, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — which is made up of 2,500 scientists — warns that human-induced global warming could cause average temperatures to rise by up to 10 degrees in less than 100 years.
Record heat waves battered Europe in the summer of 2003 — the hottest on that continent in 500 years — and more than 26,000 people died from heat-related causes. Studies have found that global warming doubles the risk of events like the 2003 heat wave.
2004 was the 4th warmest year on record. The 10 hottest years on record have all occurred since 1990!
Greenhouse gasses are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities. We can't exclude the possibility that natural variability has contributed as well--but the main point remains--the earth is warming, and humans must accept some responsibility for that warming.
It won't take the greatest extremes of warming to make life uncomfortable for large numbers of people. Even slightly higher temperatures in regions that are already drought or flood-prone would exacerbate those conditions. In temperate zones, warmth and increased CO2 would make some crops flourish — at first. But beyond 3° F. of warming, says Bill Easterling, a professor of geography and agronomy at Penn State and a lead author of the IPCC report, "there would be a dramatic turning point. U.S. crop yields would start to decline rapidly". In the tropics, where crops are already at the limit of their temperature range, the decrease would start right away. It's time for action on global warming.
Mankind must turn to renewable forms of energy — because of dwindling oil supplies and because of the mounting and unimpeachable evidence that we have a profound carbon problem on our hands; that even if we discover billions of new barrels of oil in the ground, we cannot keep burning them — and pumping vast amounts of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — without potentially catastrophic consequences.
According to the latest findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in order to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, global emissions must be reduced to at least 60 percent below 1990 levels. That is a radical change in the way the world uses energy. And to accomplish that, many people feel, will require nothing less than a new industrial revolution, an overwhelming retreat from society's mass reliance on the carbon fuels — oil, gas and coal — that have powered the global economy for more than a hundred years.
Panel Supports a Controversial Report on Global Warming
By Andrew C. Revkin
June 22, 2006
An influential and controversial paper asserting that recent warming in the Northern Hemisphere was probably unrivaled for 1,000 years was endorsed Thursday, with a few reservations, by a panel convened by the nation's pre-eminent scientific body.
The panel said that a statistical method used in the 1999 study was not the best and that some uncertainties in the work "have been underestimated," and particularly challenged the authors' conclusion that the 1990's were probably the warmest decade in a millennium.
But in a 155-page report, the 12-member panel convened by the National Academies said "an array of evidence" supported the main thrust of the paper. Disputes over details, it said, reflected the normal intellectual clash that takes place as science tests new approaches to old questions.
The study, led by Michael E. Mann, a climatologist now at Pennsylvania State University, was the first to estimate widespread climate trends by stitching together a grab bag of evidence, including variations in ancient tree rings and temperatures measured in deep holes in the earth.
It has been repeatedly attacked by Republican lawmakers and some industry-financed groups as built on cherry-picked data meant to create an alarming view of recent warming and play down past natural warm periods.
At a news conference at the headquarters of the National Academies, several members of the panel reviewing the study said they saw no sign that its authors had intentionally chosen data sets or methods to get a desired result.
"I saw nothing that spoke to me of any manipulation," said one member, Peter Bloomfield, a statistics professor at North Carolina State University. He added that his impression was that the study was "an honest attempt to construct a data analysis procedure."
More broadly, the panel examined other recent research comparing the pronounced warming trend over the last several decades with temperature shifts over the last 2,000 years. It expressed high confidence that warming over the last 25 years exceeded any peaks since 1600. And in a news conference here on Thursday, three panelists said the current warming was probably, but not certainly, beyond any peaks since the year 900.
The experts said there was no reliable way to make estimates for surface-temperature trends in the first millennium A.D.
In the report, the panel emphasized that the significant remaining uncertainties about climate patterns over the last 2,000 years did not weaken the scientific case that the current warming trend was caused mainly by people, through the buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
"Surface temperature reconstructions for periods prior to the industrial era are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that climatic warming is occurring in response to human activities, and they are not the primary evidence," the report said.
The 1999 paper is part of a growing body of work trying to pull together disparate clues of climate conditions before the age of weather instruments.
The paper includes a graph of temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere that gained the nickname "hockey stick" because of its vivid depiction of a long period with little temperature variation for nearly 1,000 years, followed by a sharp upward hook in recent decades.
The hockey stick has become something of an environmentalist icon. It was prominently displayed in a pivotal 2001 United Nations report concluding that greenhouse gases from human activities had probably caused most of the warming measured since 1950. A version of it is in the Al Gore documentary "Inconvenient Truth."
Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, and Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, have repeatedly criticized the Mann study, citing several peer-reviewed papers challenging its methods.
The main critiques were done by Stephen McIntyre, a statistician and part-time consultant in Toronto to minerals industries, and Ross McKitrick, an economist at the University of Guelph in Ontario.
They contended that Dr. Mann and his colleagues selected particular statistical methods and sets of data, like a record of rings in bristlecone pine trees, that were most apt to produce a picture of unusual recent warming. They also complained that Dr. Mann refused to share his data and techniques.
On his Web log, climateaudit.org, on Thursday, Mr. McIntyre said the panel's report seemed to have "two completely distinct personalities," upholding specific criticisms of Dr. Mann's methods, but still positing it was plausible that recent warming exceeded any warm periods for 1,000 years.
In an interview, Dr. Mann expressed muted satisfaction with the panel's findings. He said it clearly showed that the 1999 analysis had held up over time.
But he complained that the committee seemed to forget about the many caveats that were in the original paper. "Even the title of the paper on which all this has been based is as much about the caveats and uncertainties as it is about the findings," he said.
The paper, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, was called "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties and Limitations."
Raymond S. Bradley, a University of Massachusetts geoscientist and one of Dr. Mann's co-authors, said that the caveats were dropped mainly as the graph was widely reproduced by others. (The other author of the 1999 paper was Malcolm K. Hughes of the University of Arizona.)
The report was done at the request of Representative Sherwood Boehlert, the New York Republican who is chairman of the House Science Committee, who called last November for a review of the 1999 study and related research to clear the air.
In a statement, Mr. Boehlert, who is retiring at the end of the year, expressed satisfaction with the results, saying, "There is nothing in this report that should raise any doubts about the broad scientific consensus on global climate change — which doesn't rest primarily on these temperature issues, in any event — or any doubts about whether any paper on the temperature records was legitimate scientific work."
Critics of the paper remain unconvinced.
A separate panel of statisticians is dissecting Dr. Mann's data and papers for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, a spokesman for the chairman, Mr. Barton, said.
Make GlobalWarming an Issue
By Walter CronkiteThe Philadelphia Enquirer Monday 15, March 2004
The contempt of the Bush administration for environmentalists and their concerns is well known by now. While evidence of man- made environmental damage mounts, the Bush team resists its implications like a defeated army whose rear guard fights off its pursuers as it retreats. That has been especially true of its handling of the most serious of all environmental issues - global warming.
First, the administration claimed that global warming was the work of liberal hysterics and had been discounted by "more sober scientists." Then, it admitted that it was happening but said there was no proof humans caused it, or could fix it.
Retreat No. 3 was the White House discovery that, yes, indeed, some of the warming was due to human activity, and we should take steps, say, to reduce emissions, but those steps should be voluntary on the part of industry.
There are two scientific theories that have been gaining credence in recent years that challenge the sanity of that kind of resistance to fact - and make no mistake about it, global warming is a fact.
Both theories begin with a phenomenon that is taking place right now. Scientists are beginning to understand climate as a complex interactive system that is affected by everything from the emission of greenhouse gases, to deforestation, to the condition of Arctic and Antarctic glaciers.
It is a system with a feedback mechanism. For example, higher temperatures lead to the melting of sea ice, which exposes more water to the sun. The water absorbs more solar energy, which accelerates global warming, and so on. Scientists fear that such feedbacks might produce a self-sustaining and accelerating warming that is beyond human control.
The second theory goes by the name of Abrupt Climate Change. It suggests that catastrophic results of global warming might not occur gradually, as most have expected, but quite suddenly - within a few years. This theory also starts with the melting of glaciers and sea ice, but involves the dilution of seawater's salinity - or salt content - that results. That salt content is a key element in an ocean current that takes heat from the tropics northward and cold water southward and in the process moderates temperatures in the Eastern United States and much of Europe.
The collapse of this so-called conveyor could, in the worst case, produce a new ice age. The best case would give us severe winters, increasingly violent storms, flooding, drought and high winds around the globe, disrupting food production and energy supplies and raising sea levels high enough to flood coastal cities and make them unlivable.
These are not predictions but real possibilities - far more possible today than scientists had previously believed. And while the politicos in the White House continue to stick their heads in the sand, some at the Pentagon have taken on the task of studying the national- security implications of Abrupt Climate Change.
What they came up with was a world whose "carrying capacity" - the number of people the globe can sustain - is being progressively lowered, a world where war becomes the rule, not the exception, and where wars are no longer fought for ideological, religious, or geopolitical reasons - but for resources and survival. This unclassified Pentagon study, completed last fall, has been released to several news organizations and was highlighted in the Feb. 9 edition of Fortune magazine.
One thing we have to keep in mind: While these might only be worst-case scenarios, many of the conditions and processes scientists think might trigger them already are present or under way. Global warming is at least as important as gay marriage or the cost of Social Security. And if it is not seriously debated in the general election, it will measure the irresponsibility of the entire political class. This is an issue that cannot, and must not, be ignored any longer.
1990s were Millennium's Warmest Years
06/27/2007
The 1990s was the warmest decade of the past thousand years according to a top British meteorologist.
Click on an image to enlarge it.
The Times of London said research by Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia shows that seven of the world's 10 warmest years since records began were in the 1990s, including 1999.
Jones told the Times that "although we do not have instrumental records going back further than the mid-19th century for global temperatures, analysis of tree rings, ice cores, corals and historical records indicate that the 1990s were the warmest decade of the millennium".
Jones reported that data from the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, also shows 1999 was the fifth-warmest year on record based on global observations going back to 1860.
Temperatures in the 1990s were 0.33 C higher than in 1961-90 and 0.7 C higher than those at the turn of the century.
Still, 1999 was a bit of a reprieve from 1998.
"The rapid cooling of temperatures in the equatorial Pacific has contributed to 1999 being significantly cooler than in 1998, the hottest year on record", said David Parker of the British Meteorological Office.
"This large, natural variability is exactly what we expect to see superimposed on a long-term warming due to manmade greenhouse gas emissions", he said. His forecast for 2000 shows a high probability it will be "warmer than 1999 as the cold Pacific slowly warms".
In November, researchers at the British Meteorological Office said new evidence suggests that temperatures could rise far higher than previously supposed due to a huge surge in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses during the first half of the 21st century.
That could increase droughts, hurricanes and food shortages and raise sea levels. Unless carbon dioxide emissions are cut, the researchers said, the average land temperature could be six degrees hotter than the predicted 41 degrees Fahrenheit.
Meteorologists Issue Climate Warning
December 24, 1999
James Baker, undersecretary of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Peter Ewins, head of the British Meteorological Office, sent a joint letter to London’s "Independent" newspaper warning that "our climate is now changing rapidly and it’s important we take action now". The letter’s frank tone breaks with the conservative approach normally adopted in public by climate change scientists traditionally reticent about venturing into the political arena. "We’re now coming clean and saying we believe the evidence is almost incontrovertible, that man has an effect and therefore we need to act accordingly. As the average temperature goes up we can expect more extreme events — floods, drought, more severe storms. We now need to persuade the business community that to act now is the responsible thing to do". They said that expanding energy efficiency and renewable energy presented profitable opportunities for businesses trying to pump less carbon dioxide into the air.
Global Warming—What’s the Boiling Point?
More and more scientists across the globe agree that climate change caused by greenhouse gas emission is happening! It is argued that by 2100, worldwide temperatures would be 1.4 to 5.8 Celsius higher than today! What does that mean? It means that ocean levels will rise & thousands of miles of coastline will be submerged; thousand of plants and animals may go extinct; increased chaotic weather conditions; and much more!
At this point, hundreds of nations across the globe are ratifying the Kyoto protocol. An international treaty to reduce global greenhouse gases. The United States is one of the few nations that refuses to support it! The US government, instead of taking action, has decided that we should study the phenomenon of global warming for another ten years!
Find out more! http://www.care2.com/go/z/4527
American Geophysical Union Speaks Out on Climate
March 1, 1999
After months of internal discussion, the American Geophysical Union, a prominent international scientific body of 35,000 Earth and planetary scientists, made a bold move into the public global warming debate by unveiling a strongly worded position statement on climate change and greenhouse gases.
The move signifies a new political role for the high-profile body, which has traditionally distanced itself from any type of advocacy work by its members. It also marks the scientific group’s first foray into environmental policy, as prior position statements have focused on research and education issues.
The paper reiterates several generally accepted fundamentals of climate change, including the role of humans in increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, the link between enhanced greenhouse gas effects and rising surface temperatures, and the unusual increase in global temperatures over the last 150 years. It noted as well that “there is no known geologic precedent for the transfer of carbon from the Earth’s crust to the atmosphere,” in amounts comparable to fossil-fuel-burning, without simultaneous changes in the climate system.
The paper also addresses the relationship between climate science and policymaking. Present understanding of the Earth’s climate, it argues, provides a “compelling basis for legitimate public concern” over future global and regional climate changes resulting from higher greenhouse-gas concentrations, including higher surface temperatures, increases in precipitation and evaporation rates, rising sea levels, and changes in the biosphere.
While acknowledging significant uncertainties, the statement stresses that “the present level of scientific uncertainty does not justify inaction in the mitigation of human-induced climate change.” This point was reaffirmed at a press conference unveiling the position statement, where Eric Sundquist, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told reporters, “we want to make sure that scientific uncertainty is not used to justify political inaction.”
In closing, the statement encourages scientists worldwide to take part in international programs of research, scientific assessments and policy discussions on climate change. The AGU also recommends the development and evaluation of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and to prepare for the impacts of climate change.
(Seth Dunn is a member of the Worldwatch Institute research staff.)
Click on the image to enlarge it.The surface of the vast ice sheet in Greenland melted more during the summer of 2002 than at any time in the 24 years that conditions have been tracked. Some of the melting is due to accumulation of dark dust that increases absorption of solar energy. A large percentage of the dust comes from coal fired power plants.
Alaska, No Longer So Frigid, Starts to Crack, Burn and Sag
By Timothy Egan, June 16, 2002
Warming of Alaska has dire consequences for state; effects of 5.4 degree rise in Alaska's temperature over last 30 years include buckling highways, shoreline erosion and forests killed by beetles; in Alaska, rising temperatures, whether caused by greenhouse gas emissions or nature in prolonged mood swing, are not a topic of debate or an abstraction; Senator Ted Stevens says that no place is experiencing more startling change from rising temperatures than Alaska and that problems will cost Alaska hundreds of millions of dollars.
Global Warming Threatens Health of World's Oceans
Since 1800 the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by nearly 36 percent. However, this reflects only half of the CO2 that has been emitted during this same time, leaving room for some doubt as to the urgency of global warming. Recent studies show that the "missing" CO2 has been absorbed into the oceans. And now, studies are demonstrating that the increased amount of CO2 in the oceans is threatening ocean life.
The oceans absorbed 48 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted into the air by humans over the last two centuries? At that rate, impacts from global warming could damage the ability for many ocean creatures to survive.
Between 1800 and 1994 the oceans absorbed 118 billion metric tons of carbon — equaling the weight of 118 billion small cars! What happens now? According to the study, the increased carbon can affect the acidity of the oceans, slow the development of coral reefs and shelled sea life — creatures that represent the base of the food chain in the ocean. Such a disruption to the food chain can severely affect the balance of ocean life with potentially catastrophic results.
British Scientists Say Carbon Dioxide Is Turning the Oceans Acidic
By Kenneth ChangJuly 1, 2005
Whether or not it contributes to global warming, carbon dioxide is turning the oceans acidic, Britain's leading scientific organization warned yesterday.
In a report by a panel of scientists, the organization, the Royal Society, said the growing acidity would be very likely to harm coral reefs and other marine life by the end of the century.
"I think there are very serious issues to be addressed," the panel's chairman, Dr. John Raven of the University of Dundee in Scotland, said in an interview. "It will affect all organisms that have skeletons, shells, hard bits that are made of calcium carbonate."
The 60-page report was timed to influence next week's Group of 8 economic summit meeting. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, president of the group this year, has been calling for strong action to limit climate change.
Unlike forecasts of global warming, which are based on complex and incomplete computer models, the chemistry of carbon dioxide and seawater is simple and straightforward.
The burning of fossil fuels by cars and power plants releases more than 25 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year. Roughly a third of that is absorbed by the oceans, where the gas undergoes chemical reactions that produce carbonic acid, which is corrosive to shells.
"That's indisputable," Dr. Raven said. "I don't think anyone can get around that. It's really rock-solid high school chemistry."
The pH scale, which measures the concentration of hydrogen, runs from 1, the most acidic and highest concentration of ions, to 14, the most alkaline, with almost no ions. Ocean water today is somewhat alkaline, at 8.1, about 0.1 lower than at the start of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago.
But like the magnitude scale of earthquakes, one unit on the pH scale reflects a change of a factor of 10. The 0.1 pH change means there are now 30 percent more hydrogen ions in the water.
Depending on the rate of fossil fuel burning, the pH of ocean water near the surface is expected to drop to 7.7 to 7.9 by 2100, lower than any time in the last 420,000 years, the Royal Society report said.
Dr. Patrick J. Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute, the libertarian research group based in Washington that is skeptical that global warming will cause serious environmental harm, pointed out that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere had been higher for 90 million of the last 100 million years.
But Dr. Ken Caldeira, a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in Stanford, Calif., and a member of the Royal Society panel, said the difference was that the current carbon dioxide release was occurring quickly, over just two centuries. In the past, water from the deeper ocean would have had time to mix, diluting the effect of the carbon dioxide. "If we put it out over a few hundred thousand years, we'd have nothing to worry about," he said.
The pH change is likely to slow the rate of growth of coral reefs, which are already suffering from warmer temperatures and pollution, the report said.
"By mid-century, 2050-ish, we will probably see noticeable gaps within coral reefs," Dr. Raven said. "Any weakening of their skeleton can make them more prone to storm events."
The increased acidity could also reduce populations of plankton with calcium carbonate shells, disrupting the food chain and hurting some fisheries, the scientists said.
The Global Warming Dropout
To enlarge the cartoon, click on it.
Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, wrote, “In its business-as-usual approach to climate change, the Bush administration is increasingly out of step not only with other industrialized powers, but also with the growing support in this country for action to prevent global warming. The administration’s oddly two-sided report to the United Nations brings the White House into the scientific mainstream on the subject — acknowledging that human activity is probably the cause of global warming and that America itself faces serious consequences — but at the same time lays out a strategy ensuring that American emissions of greenhouse gases will continue rising sharply for at least a decade.”
-- Source: http://www.pewclimate.org/


"It was not until we saw the picture of the earth, from the moon, that we realized how small and how helpless this planet is — something that we must hold in our arms and care for." — Margaret Mead
To enlarge a picture, click on it.
Global warming cartoons
NOTE: If you can't stand the heat, don't mess with Mother Nature.
One interesting aspect of the debate on global warming is that there is a "debate." Earth scientists — even those at Texas A&M — have no doubt that it is happening and happening faster than their original models predicted. But as so often happens, public debate is deformed by corporate money. A corporate lobby called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), held a recent conference. One of the talks was on the greenhouse effect, given by a professor from someplace, and the theme of his talk was that the greenhouse effect is nothing but a scam being advanced by environmental terrorists to destroy business in America."
As Upton Sinclair observed, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
What concerns me about anyone pretending to expertise describing global warming as "a scam advanced by environmental terrorists to destroy business" is that it sends public debate into cuckoo-land. It's not as though the measurements and readings taken by several thousand earth scientists around the world and by the United States government are under question. One can certainly debate what the findings mean in terms of global warming — how much, how fast — and scientists do have differences on those points.
Facts are Stubborn Things
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.May 17, 2005Source: http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/
For 15 years King Coal and Big Oil, led by the Exxon Corporation, have funded dozens of Washington think tanks stocked with aberrant scientists (known as biostitutes) to persuade the public and the press that the science is still out on global warming and give political cover to the industries’ indentured servants on Capitol Hill -- corporate toadies like James Inhofe and Tom DeLay.
They have also relied heavily on shills like Rush Limbaugh to delude the broader public with their junk science. Limbaugh’s 1993 book, "The Way Things Ought to Be," argues [pdf] that global warming is a hoax -- a point of view he regularly espouses on his popular radio show.
Now, the very industries for which Limbaugh has ransomed his integrity are turning on him and his junk science cronies. Last month, Cinergy, one of America’s largest coal-burning utilities, devoted 35 pages of its annual report to global warming. And last week, Exxon and General Electric launched massive new campaigns to develop technology to deal with climate change. Even these companies recognize that the facts about global warming are no longer deniable and they have left loyal mouthpieces like Limbaugh high and dry.
The Global Oxygen Crisis
If you're a fan of fiction writer, Clive Cussler -- or of actor Matthew McConaughey -- you'll recall that the plot of one of Cussler's "Dirk Pitt" novels, which was made into the action adventure thriller Sahara, involves a man-made toxic red tide bloom that threatens to destroy the ocean's phytoplankton, which produce half of the world's oxygen, as well as consume one hundred million tons of carbon-dioxide daily.
In a strange and serious twist of fate, it turns out that global warming is not only heating the planet, it's also starving the ocean's phytoplankton.
Global warming is causing stratification of the world's oceans, which is preventing the up-welling of colder, nutrient-rich waters on which the phytoplankton depend to fix atmospheric carbon dioxide. But as their numbers decline, they absorb less CO2, creating a vicious climatic feedback loop.
Global Warming "Will Cancel Out Western Aid and Devastate Africa"
By Andrew Grice The Independent UK
Thursday 13 July 2006
Climate change could have a devastating impact on Africa, wiping out all the benefits from the measures to help the continent agreed by the world's richest nations last year.
The warning will be issued by the British Government today when it announces plans to bring poor countries into the next round of international discussions to combat global warming.
The serious threat posed to the developing world will be highlighted when Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for International Development, publishes his first White Paper setting out his department's strategy. It will warn that people in poor nations, while producing much lower carbon emissions than rich countries, could be the biggest victims of climate change.
They will have to cope with more droughts, more extreme temperatures and sudden and intense rainfall causing greater food insecurity, loss of income, higher death rates and more diseases. Research by the department to assess the impact on Africa by 2050, taking account of poverty forecasts, suggests that southern Africa and the Sahel, the Great Lakes areas and the coastal zones of eastern and western Africa will be particularly at risk.
In some parts of east Africa, higher rainfall and and temperatures will help crop production in the short term but there will be more frequent crop failures in the future. "What is clear is that Africa appears to have some of the greatest burdens of climate change impacts, certainly from the human health and agricultural perspective," the research concluded.
"It is a region with a generally limited ability to cope and adapt; and it has some of the lowest per capita emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. The likely impacts of climate change therefore present a global ethical challenge as well as a development and scientific challenge."
Mr. Benn will pledge that British ministers and officials will help developing nations address climate change. He will signal a shift under which, instead of relying on help from rich nations on dealing with the consequences, governments from poor countries play a key role in formulating the world's response to the issue. That would mean developing countries joining talks on a new international agreement on the threat to the planet, called "Kyoto 2."
Mr. Benn does not want the world to impose carbon emissions targets on poor countries, which they would be reluctant to accept, but wants them to form part of a new global consensus on the issue. In the long run, that could allow them to "sell" carbon emissions permits to raise money for their own development.
Mr. Benn said yesterday: "Climate change is happening faster than any of us anticipated even five years ago. It is the most pressing global challenge of all, yet does not have a global framework for solving it. Climate Change knows no boundaries and neither should we."
Gordon Conway, the chief scientific adviser at the Department for International Development, said: "It is a phenomenon that occurs in a world that is already severely challenged. This is especially true of Africa where the existence of widespread poverty, hunger and poor health already affect millions of people. All prognostications suggest climate change will make their lives even worse."
Tony Blair said he hoped Africa and climate change would be discussed by G8 leaders at their summit in St Petersburg this weekend. But there is little sign of major progress at a meeting likely to be dominated by energy supplies. Jacques Chirac, the French President, criticized the US for blocking progress on climate change. He said: "Global threats require global responses. We shall not solve the problem of global warming if we each go our own way or increase the number of unilateral or partial solutions. This is particularly true for global warming. I am concerned at the weakening of the international regime for climate change. We must reverse this trend."
President Chirac said the seven G8 members party to the Kyoto protocol snubbed by America, should set an example by respecting their commitments, as Europe and France were doing. "It is up to them to show the way forward for the post-2012 period," he said. "We seek an ambitious agreement commensurate with the threat posed to humanity, one committing all the G8 countries, including the United States, as well as emerging countries."
Act or Step Aside
The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report represents "history's most definitive statement of scientific consensus on climate change." Its main findings: global warming is "unequivocal" and human activity is the main driver, "very likely" causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950. If left unchecked, it will destroy our habitat. "It's time to end the debate and act," House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN) says. "All the naysayers should step aside." This morning, Gordon chaired Congress' first hearings on the findings of the IPCC (details here). These proceedings should be the beginning of a thorough and sustained examination of the report's findings -- by Congress, the media, and ordinary citizens. The IPCC report cannot fall off the radar, because the alternative is waiting for disaster to compel us into action. "Does it take a crisis to get people to go along a new path or can they respond to a series of rational, incremental gains in knowledge?" asked Ralph J. Cicerone, the president of the National Academy of Sciences. "That's the question." If we answer that question correctly, the good news is there is still "an enormous amount the international community could do to avert climate change if swift action was taken," says Dr. Graeme Pearman, who helped draft the report. (A good first step: the aggressive Global Warming Reduction Act sponsored by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and John Kerry (D-MA).)THE PROCESS: Climate change skeptic Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) says the IPCC's report is "a political document, not a scientific report." In fact, the power of the IPCC findings are in their exhaustive scientific rigor. "The main science report -- more than 1,600 pages in its draft form -- was compiled by 150 scientists as main authors, another 400 scientists as contributing authors, a team of review editors, and some 600 reviewers. The document went through two rounds of reviews. And unlike past efforts, review editors required chapter authors to respond to each responsible review comment." Researchers utilize the latest technology -- scientists at the federal Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory "devoted half of their supercomputer's time for a year running models for the latest report" -- and "every government in the world" approves the summary for policymakers released last week. "Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process," one climate scientist notes. "This is a very conservative document - that's what makes it so scary." Indeed, the process is at times so ploddingly exhaustive that "many top U.S. scientists reject [the] rosier numbers" about sea level rise because the calculations "don't include the recent, and dramatic, melt-off of big ice sheets" in Greenland and Antarctica.THE SHIFT: The findings of the new report are most dramatic when compared to language used in previous IPCC statements. The panel's first report released in 1990 found that rising temperatures were "broadly consistent with prediction of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability," meaning "the observed increase could be largely due to this natural variability." Five years later, the IPCC argued that a "balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate." In 2001 report cited "new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities." In the latest report, it states that warming is "very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic [man-made] greenhouse gas concentrations."WORLD CHANGING: Continued global warming is predicted in the new report, leading to a "huge disruption to agriculture, more floods, heatwaves, desertification and melting glaciers." Droughts will be longer, flooding rains will be rarer but heavier. "Cyclones will hit harder. Violent storms and extreme heatwaves will strike more frequently. Evaporation will suck up scarce inland water. Sea levels will creep up half a meter. Oceans will be so acidic that in some places shells and reefs will dissolve." The increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 "more likely than not" can be attributed to man-made global warming, the report finds. Australia, currently in the grip of its worst recorded drought, is warned that the Great Barrier Reef will "become 'functionally extinct' because of coral bleaching." THE HUMAN TOLL: The impact of global warming will be catastrophic, "forcing hundreds of millions of people to flee their devastated homelands, particularly in tropical, low-lying areas, while creating waves of immigrants" -- dubbed climate refugees -- "whose movements will strain the economies of even the most affluent countries." Climate change will bring water scarcity to between 1.1 and 3.2 billion people by the end of the century; an additional 200 million to 600 million people across the world "would face food shortages in another 70 years, while coastal flooding would hit another 7 million homes." "The message is that every region of the earth will have exposure," says Pearman. As the poles warm and substantial parts of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt or disintegrate, "we may be essentially remaking the face of the Earth by putting a lot more water into the ocean, reconfiguring the coastal zone, drowning areas like river deltas, where tens of millions of people live in some countries, like the Netherlands, Bangladesh, the Louisiana delta in this country." Princeton climatologist Michael Oppenheimer calls it "the most pervasive and most threatening consequence of global warming. It will be very expensive. And once it gets under way, it's essentially impossible to stop." Meanwhile, the poor in developing countries "will suffer the most, even though they are the least responsible for global warming," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed out, as "the annual costs of climate change impacts in exposed developing countries could range from several percent to tens of percent of gross domestic product."THE SPIN: A White House letter laments that, following the release of the 2007 IPCC report, "a number of media reports perpetuated inaccuracies that the President's concern about climate change is new." Actually, the White House says, "Beginning in June 2001, President Bush has consistently acknowledged climate change is occurring and humans are contributing to the problem." But just last year, Bush claimed there is still "a debate over whether [global warming] is man-made or naturally caused." Moreover, the White House says, "climate change has been a top priority since the President’s first year in office." In fact, Bush has consistently rejected stronger measures to combat climate change, even as carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. have increased by 354 million metric tons since 2001, including the "largest annual amount ever produced by any country on record." He has also cut NASA's earth science budget by 30 percent since taking office. Last week, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman again rejected the idea of limiting U.S. emissions. "We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution," he said. In fact, the U.S. emits a quarter of global carbon emissions, more than any other country, despite having only 5 percent of the world's population.