Let's start off with this little CBS News story on global warming:
(AP) Global warming is so severe that it will "continue for centuries," leading to a far different planet in 100 years, warned a grim landmark report from the world's leading climate scientists and government officials. Yet, many of the experts are hopeful that nations will now take action to avoid the worst scenarios.
They tried to warn of dire risks without scaring people so much they'd do nothing _ inaction that would lead to the worst possible scenarios.
"It's not too late," said Australian scientist Nathaniel Bindoff, a co-author of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report issued Friday. The worst can be prevented by acting quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
The worst could mean more than 1 million dead and hundreds of billions of dollars in costs by 2100, said Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of many study co-authors. He said that adapting will mean living with more extreme weather such as severe droughts, more hurricanes and wildfires.
"It's later than we think," said panel co-chair Susan Solomon, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who helped push through the document's strong language.
Solomon, who remains optimistic about the future, said it's close to too late to alter the future for her children _ but maybe it's not too late for her grandchildren.
The report was the first of four to be released this year by the panel, which was created by the United Nations in 1988. It found:
_Global warming is "very likely" caused by man, meaning more than 90 percent certain. That's the strongest expression of certainty to date from the panel.
_If nothing is done to change current emissions patterns of greenhouse gases, global temperature could increase as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.
_But if the world does get greenhouse gas emissions under control _ something scientists say they hope can be done _ the best estimate is about 3 degrees Fahrenheit.
_Sea levels are projected to rise 7 to 23 inches by the end of the century. Add another 4 to 8 inches if recent, surprising melting of polar ice sheets continues.
Sea level rise could get worse after that. By 2100, if nothing is done to curb emissions, the melting of Greenland's ice sheet would be inevitable and the world's seas would eventually rise by more than 20 feet, Bindoff said.
Yes, global warming is back in the news again--and it is even direr than we thought. The scientists are 90 percent certain that global warming is being caused by man--not by some natural cause. And even worst, it is through mankinds burning of fossil fuels that is causing the greenhouse gas emissions to trap sunlight within the earth's atmosphere, resulting in this warming trend. Can something be done to save us from this terrifying fate?
Yes! Something can be done! According to this Guardian Unlimited story, titled Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study:
Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.
The UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science. It will underpin international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.
The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.
The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".
Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.
[....]
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for an independent review that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the IPCC report.
That's right--Exxon is going to save us from the dangers of global warming by bribing scientists to write articles contesting the validity of the overwhelming scientific evidence showing the relationship between the burning of fossil fuels to global warming. Even better yet, Exxon is funneling this bribery money through its proxy think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute--can't allow Exxon to be directly linked to these bribes, even though Exxon's former CEO Lee Raymond is the vice chair of AEI's board of trustees. Of course, Exxon's not hurting by this global warming trend:
HOUSTON, Feb. 1 — Exxon Mobil reported a record annual profit today but a modest decline in fourth-quarter earnings because of falling oil and gas prices. Meanwhile, its competitor Royal Dutch Shell reported an unexpected rise in quarterly earnings, a sign that the industry is still going strong.
[....]
Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, reported profit of $10.3 billion in the fourth quarter. That represented a decline of 4.3 percent from its record profit in the fourth quarter of 2005 and was Exxon’s first quarterly decline in almost three years.
But for the year, Exxon’s profit rose 9 percent from 2005 results to a record of $39.5 billion, the largest annual profit ever for an American company.
Oil prices for the quarter ranged between $55 and $63 a barrel, averaging just shy of $60. That represented a 15 percent decline from the third quarter and was less than 1 percent lower than the fourth quarter of 2005.Graph of Exxon's yearly profits for the past six years. From the New York Times.
Or perhaps we should understand that Exxon is not going to save us from the dangers of global warming, but rather save their own overly bloated corporate ass, and Exxon's former CEO Lee Raymonds own bloated retirement package from the evils of scientific facts that have a liberal bias.
Then again, maybe I should get involved in this debate on global warming--I mean, if Exxon's willing to pay me $10,000 to criticize this global warming report, I'll do it. I'll admit that I don't have a scientific background, but who really needs a scientific background to write such fiction that can be passed off as fact through the AEI? Global warming is not caused by the buildup of greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. That is what these scientific think-tanks want you to think--remember, science has a liberal bias. The real truth of the matter is that global warming has been caused by the emission of certain gases from former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond, just after he consumed his $400 million pork retirement dinner. There has been a steady buildup of volatile, intestinal gas within Raymond, which is then expelled through the anus. It is the release of these gases that have trapped the sunlight within the earth's atmosphere, causing the planet to heat up. Instead of reducing the demand for burning fossil fuels, I have determined through rigorous, scientific study, that this global warming trend can be reversed if Raymond would use his $400 million retirement package to buy up the world's supply of Pepto-Bismol. The results are conclusive:
Thus, Exxon-Mobil can continue to drill for oil and gouge American customers at the gas pumps.
So can I have my $10,000 bribe?
No comments:
Post a Comment