Sunday, November 26, 2006

And if the last two didn't get your attention, even USA Today is getting worried. The following article highlights how our pocketbooks will be hit...always a clarion call, even to conservatives. jg Warming poses a fiscal threat By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY Pay now to fix global warming or risk a worldwide economic depression later, says a landmark British government report out Monday. "The benefits of strong, early action on climate change outweigh the costs," concludes the 576-page Stern Review Report on the Economics of Climate Change. The report, authored by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, is called the most comprehensive projection of the economic impact of warming. Failure to act carries the danger that rising temperatures will increase the likelihood of widespread drought, crop failure, sea-level rise and other economic calamities, the report warns. "Our actions over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century," according to the report. READ THE REPORT: On Deadline links to the full study CHECK OUT A VIDEO OF THE PRIME MINISTER: Blair's warning Read the rest of the story here 9:47:28 PM    comment []

Climate Change Special: State of Denial By Fred Pearce of the New Scientist Kevin Trenberth reckons he is a marked man. He has argued that last year's devastating Atlantic hurricane season, which spawned hurricane Katrina, was linked to global warming. For the many politicians and minority of scientists who insist there is no evidence for any such link, Trenberth's views are unacceptable and some have called for him step down from an international panel studying climate change. "The attacks on me are clearly designed to get me fired or to resign," says Trenberth. The attacks fit a familiar pattern. Sceptics have also set their sights on scientists who have spoken out about the accelerating meltdown of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica and the thawing of the planet's permafrost. These concerns will be addressed in the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global organisation created by the UN in 1988 to assess the risks of human-induced climate change. Every time one of these assessments is released, about once every five years, some of the American scientists who have played a part in producing it become the targets of concerted attacks apparently designed to bring down their reputations and careers. At stake is the credibility of scientists who fear our planet is hurtling towards disaster and want to warn the public in the US and beyond. Read the rest here 9:41:07 PM    comment []

Report's stark warning on climate By Robert Peston of the BBC News The Stern Review says that climate change represents the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. And on the basis of this intellectually rigorous and thorough report, it is hard to disagree. Sir Nicholas Stern, a distinguished development economist and former chief economist at the World Bank, is not a man given to hyperbole. Yet he says "our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th Century". His report gives prescriptions for how to minimise this economic and social disruption.   His central argument is that spending large sums of money now on measures to reduce carbon emissions will bring dividends on a colossal scale. It would be wholly irrational, therefore, not to spend this money. However, he warns that we are too late to prevent any deleterious consequences from climate change. Read the rest here 9:36:54 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 John Giacobbe.