Climate Change Is a Reality. Today, Our World Is Hotter Than It Has Been in 2,000 Years
“Climate change is a reality. Today, our world is hotter than it has been in 2,000 years. By the end of the century, if current trends continue, the global temperature will likely climb higher than at any time in the past two million years.”
“2003 was the hottest summer in Europe for 500 years. This caused agricultural losses of E6 billion. The death toll from the heat wave was 20,000 people by some estimates. Worldwide the effects of climate change claim 160,000 lives per year. By 2020 this is expected to double.”
“Sir David King, Chief Scientist in Tony Blair's government, has said that global warming is a greater threat than terrorism. Hans Blix, who ran the UN weapons inspection programme in Iraq, says the same thing.”
“The Pentagon's planning scenario says that global warming "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern." It declares that "future wars will be fought over the issue of survival rather than religion, ideology or national honour."”
“The Pentagon foresees fishing wars between Spain and Portugal. Pakistan, India, and China - all armed with nuclear weapons - skirmish at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land. Bangladesh becomes uninhabitable. Drought hits the American breadbasket. Britain's weather begins to resemble Siberia. India, South Africa, and Indonesia are ripped apart by civil war.”
Greenpeace Canada. (10 Nov 2006)
“In the next 50 years, 1 in 4 plant and animal species could become extinct due to climate change. That’s one million species under threat.”
Greenpeace Canada. (10 Nov 2006)
“Human destruction of ecosystems has increased relentlessly since industrialization. The annihilation of 60 million bison on the North American Great Plains was made possible by the intrusion of railroads and the invention of the repeating rifle. The reckless exploitation of whales was speeded by the invention of the explosive harpoon, cannon-winch and engine-driven ship. Enormous nets towed by today's factory trawlers permit oceans to be strip-mined for fish--and any other creature unlucky enough to become ensnared in these curtains of death. Tractors and other modern farm machinery alternately compact and pulverize topsoil, increasing its vulnerability to erosive winds and rains. Chain saws and bulldozers level forests faster than axes and hand saws ever could. Dynamite and drag line excavators permit strip mining on a scale hitherto unimaginable, decapitating mountains, turning landscapes into moon craters, and rendering islands such as phosphate-rich Nauru in the South Pacific all but uninhabitable.”
- A. Kent MacDougall
Humans as Cancer. (9 Nov 2006)
“There is substantial evidence to indicate that significant global warming will occur during the 21st century. Because changes have been gradual so far, and are projected to be similarly gradual in the future, the effects of global warming have the potential to be manageable for most nations. Recent research, however, suggests that there is a possibility that this gradual global warming could lead to a relatively abrupt slowing of the ocean's thermohaline conveyor, which could lead to harsher winter weather conditions, sharply reduced soil moisture, and more intense winds in certain regions that currently provide a significant fraction of the world's food production. With inadequate preparation, the result could be a significant drop in the human carrying capacity of the Earth's environment. The research suggests that once temperature rises above some threshold, adverse weather conditions could develop relatively abruptly, with persistent changes in the atmospheric circulation causing drops in some regions of 5-10 degrees Fahrenheit in a single decade. Paleoclimatic evidence suggests that altered climatic patterns could last for as much as a century, as they did when the ocean conveyor collapsed 8,200 years ago, or, at the extreme, could last as long as 1,000 years as they did during the Younger Dryas, which began about 12,700 years ago.”
Greenpeace Canada. (10 Nov 2006)
“Two factors that contribute to more intense tropical cyclones-ocean heat content and water vapor-have both increased over the past several decades. This is primarily due to human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests, which have significantly elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere. CO2 and other heat-trapping gases act like an insulating blanket that warms the land and ocean and increases evaporation.”
Union of Concerned Scientists. (9 Nov 2006)
Hurrican Katrina. hurricane-katrina-6.jpg (11 Nov 2006)
