Scientists 95% Sure Current Global Warming Caused by Humans.

[Cheshire Cat]

There is a new report out that has scientists confirming that the global warming currently impacting our earth is not completely a natural phenomena is is driven by humans.


http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/27/world/climate-change-5-things/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

(CNN) -- The world's getting hotter, the sea's rising and there's increasing evidence neither are naturally occurring phenomena.

So says a report from the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change, a document released every six years that is considered the benchmark on the topic. More than 800 authors and 50 editors from dozens of countries took part in its creation.

The summary for policymakers was released early Friday, while the full report, which bills itself as "a comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change," will be distributed Monday. Other reports, including those dealing with vulnerability and mitigation, will be released next year.

Here are the highlights from Friday's summary:

Man-made climate change is almost certain

[Cheshire Cat]

And from NPR on Global Warming.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/27/226746611/its-clear-humans-are-changing-worlds-climate-panel-says

[BridgeTroll]

 Interesting dilemma... considering the planet is covered in those pesky creatures... 

[Cheshire Cat]

Indeed!  On an interesting note, scientists are saying the the world population will max out in the year 2050 and go down incrementally from that point to much lower levels.  The global birthrate is down it expected to continue to dwindle.  Now the question is what do we do to make sure us pesky humans don't destroy it before it can find it's own balance?  I will answer part of my own question.  If we don't get it right, we and many other life forms will be destroyed but planet earth will survive, adjust and new life forms will come forward.  In the billions of years of our planetary existence could it be that we have had other life form similar to us humans long before the days of the dinosaurs and we blew it back then?  Guess we will never know, but the planet will be here long after the "pests" are gone.

[BridgeTroll]

Interesting dilemma... considering the planet is covered in those pesky creatures... 

Yeah.  Its too bad that they are like insects, with no capability of changing their behavior rationally.

Such a pessimist ...

[Cheshire Cat]

I think that was a Stephen snark BT.  I do believe he is saying people can change their behaviors.  I agree with that, I just hope that the behaviors change before too much more damage is done.    I also worry that the greedy who profit off of industry that is exasperating the warming impacts to the planet just don't give a damn about what happens when they are gone as long as they live rich and high while they are here.

[Cheshire Cat]

Stephen, I know we were talking about all of this years back at Boomtown.  Do you know off the top of your head how many years it has taken just to get some on board with the reality that global warming is real?  I am thinking at least two decades. 

[Cheshire Cat]

Yes, exasperating indeed and that "it's not happening" mindset seems to be pervasive nationwide, in the past this seemed especially true among conservatives.  The reason I ask is do you think that enough people can wake up to this problem in time to avoid some of the worst damages that are well underway?  I completely agree that people can learn but they are often slow to come to grips with what they deny.  There is also that mindset that I mentioned above which is driven by powerful people who are profiting off of the damages done to the environment, like oil companies in the rain forests, hell everywhere for that matter along with growing number of automobiles in countries like China for example that are unregulated.  Thoughts?

[mbwright]

No matter how you look at it, we as humans have certainly screwed up the environment.  There are certainly consequences, temperature is likely to be one of them.

[BridgeTroll]

No matter how you look at it, we as humans have certainly screwed up the environment.  There are certainly consequences, temperature is likely to be one of them.

Every generation... since the beginning... has made a mark on the planet and each successive generation has had to deal with the conditions the previous generations have left them... both the good and the bad.  We generally call it progress.  From the disease ridden cities of Europe in the middle ages, to the blackened skies of the industrial revolution, to the carbon burning of today for needed energy and locomotion... each generation changes the way they do things and affect the planet for better and worse... I suspect the same will occur in the future...

[Cheshire Cat]

On a positive note the U.N. has decided global standards on emissions is needed and has proposed this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/28/science/global-climate-change-report.html?pagewanted=all

¶ STOCKHOLM — The world's top climate scientists on Friday formally embraced an upper limit on greenhouse gases for the first time, establishing a target level at which humanity must stop spewing them into the atmosphere or face irreversible and potentially catastrophic climatic changes. They warned that the target is likely to be exceeded in a matter of decades unless steps are taken soon to reduce emissions.
Related
Temperature Rising

Articles in this series focus on the central arguments in the climate debate and examine the evidence for global warming and its consequences.

    Document: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report Summary

¶ Unveiling the latest United Nations assessment of climate science, the experts cited a litany of changes that are already under way, warned that they are likely to accelerate and expressed virtual certainty that human activity is the main cause.

¶ "Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time," said Thomas F. Stocker, co-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations-sponsored group of scientists that produced the report. "In short, it threatens our planet, our only home."

[BridgeTroll]

 

On a positive note the U.N. has decided global standards on emissions is needed and has proposed this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/28/science/global-climate-change-report.html?pagewanted=all

Thank god for the UN... 

[Cheshire Cat]

Then there is the "madness" of U.S. politics regarding Global Warming.  I find this current political hypocrisy on the part of some GOP conservatives particularly galling and yet another symptom of turning what is a serious issue into a political "hot potato".  Now the deniers are claiming Obama cover up.  Really?

http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/27/gop-hits-obama-on-global-warming-coverup/  (click link for full story)

Senate Republicans are asking why the Obama administration attempted to convince scientists to downplay data indicating that the earth has not warmed in 15 years.

The Associated Press obtained documents showing that the Obama administration, along with European nations, tried to convince scientists involved with the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report to downplay, or even omit, data that showed a 15-year hiatus in global temperature rises.

"The failure of the IPCC climate models is obviously a great embarrassment for a significant number of researchers and politicians who have been demanding costly international and U.S. actions," wrote Republican Senators David Vitter of Louisiana, John Barrasso of Wyoming, and James Inhofe of Oklahoma in a Thursday letter to Todd Stern, the U.S. State Department's special envoy for climate change.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/27/gop-hits-obama-on-global-warming-coverup/#ixzz2g7JLMRNT

[Cheshire Cat]

You know, the U.N. importance to me is that it is representative in many ways of the "world" mindset.  I know many like to say it is a political quagmire but for me it brings a balance to many discussions.  In the case of global warming the unity in their decision takes the discussion beyond the believer/non-believer arguments in the U.S. to the reality that like it or not, there is a serious global warming issue and that recently top world scientists have declared that they are 95% sure the one of the major causes is humanity.  What always comes to my mind in these arguments is the reality that none of what is being proposed by scientists to deal with the issue will do anything physically damaging to the environment, quite the opposite is true.  The only damage to be done with their fact finding is "economic" and that goes directly to the finances of global power players most of which we know just don't give a damn about environmental damage.

In addition to the warming impacts, we also know as a fact that we are losing plant and animal species at a greater rate than anytime in our history prior to the disaster that caused the extinction of dinosaurs.  There is also global agreement with regard to the damage being done to our oceans via everything from pollution to over fishing.  Another accepted reality which all leads to the unhappy truth that human actions are indeed exasperating what are normal earthly processes and there is just no getting around that fact.

[Cheshire Cat]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2415191/Global-cooling-Arctic-ice-caps-grows-60-global-warming-predictions.html

Statistics on both sides, the truth as always is somewhere in between

Huh?

Somewhere between science and politics.  Probably not, apache.

There are scientists with differing opinions on cause, effect and how we can or can not affect changing climates. You think the scientist on one side are just scientists and the scientists on the other side are republican scientists?

Sounds like you are switching the argument.

Do you think there is some real scientific debate about the fact that climate change is occurring?  Or do you think there is debate about its cause?

I'm not arguing.
Climate change is certainly real. Rational people can't deny that. I believe there is debate about how much change in our climate is caused by the pesky humans and how much is natural. And debate as to how much our efforts to change our behavior could help anyway. Previous change in the earths climate has occurred many times and it's severity has been different every time. It's difficult at best for scientists to extrapolate over thousands of years as to the reason why.

To this point Apache you are correct in that there have been many major changes in our global environment and much of it in the past has happened as a result of natural changes on and with the earth and our atmosphere.  But science is pretty accurate in it's determination of humanities impact in hastening and making worse what might have been a natural event and that all really began around the time of our industrial revolution.  Environmentally, it has been all downhill since then and that is something that can be scientifically as well as historically proven.