Global Warming 'Unequivocal,' Landmark Report Claims
WASHINGTON – Global warming is "unequivocal" and the world will suffer catastrophic natural disasters if the international community fails to respond, warned the most comprehensive report on climate change on Saturday.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 2,000 scientists from 140 countries, reported that carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere will eventually raise sea levels up to 4.6 feet above that in the preindustrial period, about 1850, over the next 1,000 years, according to The Associated Press.
"We have already committed the world to sea-level rise," Panel Chairman Rajendra Pachauri said, according to AP. But scientists noted they cannot predict how much the seas will rise if the Greenland ice sheet melts.
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The report from the U.N. panel of scientists was the combination of three previous reports and the product of six years of work researching global warming and its effects on human heath, the oceans, wildlife and other topics, according to the San Francisco Chronicles.
It found that since 1970, global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 70 percent, and concluded that they are causing global warming.
"Only urgent, global action will do," said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, urging the United States and China – the two biggest polluters – to increase efforts to counter climate change, according to AP.
"I look forward to seeing the U.S. and China playing a more constructive role," he said. "Both countries can lead in their own way."
Ban further called for international cooperation.
"We are all in this together. We must work together," the U.N. head stated, ahead of next month's key climate conference.
The report by the U.N. panel of scientists is intended to set the stage and serve as a guide for the conference in Bali, Indonesia, where world leaders will discuss a global climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
"This report will have an incredible political impact," Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official, said according to AP. "It's a signal that politicians cannot afford to ignore."
However, not all scientists agree on the global warming issue. John Coleman,prominent meteorologist and founder of The Weather Channel, called global warming an "outrageous scam."
He said his research and investigation makes it "very clear" that global warming is a "manufactured crisis."
"It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming … It is a SCAM," wrote Coleman in a blog on San Diego television station KUSI, where he currently forecasts the weather.
He said science that supports arguments favoring global warming "has been manipulated" resulting in what he calls "bad science." The long-time meteorologist also said the earth is undergoing a natural cycle in weather that is more responsible than any climate change, and that over the next two decades there is an equal chance for a cooling trend as a warming trend.
"Global Warming, i.e. Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you 'believe in,'" Coleman wrote. "It is science, the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a nonevent, a manufactured crisis and a total scam."
The environmental debate has also been waging among Christians worldwide and prompted U.S. evangelical leaders to gather last week in Washington for a conference on theological views on environmental stewardship.
Southern Baptist leader Dr. Richard Land acknowledged that Christians should "repent of past insensitivity and neglect" on caring for the environment, according to The Baptist Press.
He said all living things deserve respect but human beings are uniquely valuable in God's creation.
"[W]hile God clearly grants preeminence to human beings in His creation and human life demands reverence as created in His image … [w]e do not have the right to disregard living things or to treat them as inanimate objects," said Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, at the conference.
Christians have been a growing force in the climate change debate with many prominent leaders supporting the idea that global warming is mainly human caused and urging the U.S. government to pass laws to reduce greenhouse gases. And while there are those who disagree with the claim that man is mainly to blame for global warming, they have agreed that man is responsible for caring for the earth which is God's creation.
"Our community recognizes we are supposed to be good stewards; we are supposed to care about issues such as climate change," said the Evangelical Climate Initiative executive director the Rev. Jim Ball, in October.
"There is no conflict between preaching the Gospel and living out the Gospel."
A recent poll by Ellison Research found that 84 percent of evangelicals support legislation to reduce global warming pollution levels. The poll also found that 54 percent of evangelicals are more likely to support a candidate that works on the issue.
