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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (11139)	4/3/2007 2:28:51 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36921

Belgium is gonna charge 20 Euros to be able to grill in your back yard. And they will use helicopters to check on people, lololol that are gonna use polluting helicopters. The helicopters will burn more carbon then the grills, lolol shows you it's all about money.

To: maceng2 who wrote (11139)	4/3/2007 4:16:55 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36921

So clearly we see from Pearly_Button that Idiots Proffering Climate Crisis(IPCC) is not the words of scientists but the words of the worlds politicians. or

To: maceng2 who wrote (11139)	4/4/2007 1:06:59 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36921

The worlds governments low balled it. They have their ways of getting the numbers fudged. Otherwise they would have been accused of "Alarmism". The world governments don't want any alarm, they find their jobs difficult enough as it is. Considering the amount of hysteria going around based on very weak science, this claim is rather amusing. Everytime comes up with an actual scientific paper it says something like the one Wharf Rat just posted: observed sea level rise is 3mm / year (about 1 foot / century), nobody has a handle on what the rise will be in the next century. Just as climate scientists cannot say whether the ice of Antarctica is melting or getting thicker overall, a not unrelated issue.

To: maceng2 who wrote (11139)	4/4/2007 10:29:36 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 36921

Excerpts from New Scientist No. 2594, 8th March 2007, page 10: By Fred Pearce ‘British researchers who have seen drafts of last month’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claim it was significantly watered down when governments became involved in writing it. David Wasdell, an independent analyst of climate change who acted as an accredited reviewer of the report, says the preliminary version produced by scientists in April 2006 contained many references to the potential for climate to change faster than expected because of “positive feedbacks” in the climate system. Most of these references were absent from the final version. His assertion is based on a line-by-line analysis of the scientists’ report and the final version, which was agreed last month at a week-long meeting of representatives of more than 100 governments. Wasdell told New Scientist: “I was astounded at the alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review. The evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific material is overwhelming.” He has prepared a critique, “Political Corruption of the IPCC Report?”, which claims: “Political and economic interests have influenced the presented scientific material.” [available here] … Wasdell’s central charge is that “reference to possible acceleration of climate change [was] consistently removed” from the final report. This happened both in its treatment of potential positive feedbacks from global warming in the future and in its discussion of recent observations of collapsing ice sheets and an accelerating rise in sea levels. For instance, the scientists’ draft report warned that natural systems such as rainforests, soils and the oceans would in future be less able to absorb greenhouse gas emissions. It said: “This positive feedback could lead to as much as 1.2 °C of added warming by 2100.” The final version does not include this figure. It acknowledges that the feedback could exist but says: “The magnitude of this feedback is uncertain.” Similarly, the draft warned that warming will increase atmospheric levels of water vapour, which acts as a greenhouse gas. “Water vapour increases lead to a strong positive feedback,” it said. “New evidence estimates a 40 to 50 per cent amplification of global mean warming.” This was absent from the published version, replaced elsewhere with the much milder observation “Water vapour changes represent the largest feedback.” The final edit also removed references to growing fears that global warming is accelerating the discharge of ice from major ice sheets such as the Greenland sheet. This would dramatically speed up rises in sea levels and may already be doing so. The 2006 draft said: “Recent observations show rapid changes in ice sheet flows,” and referred to an “accelerating trend” in sea-level rise. Neither detail made the final version, which observed that “ice flow from Greenland and Antarctica … could increase or decrease in future”. Wasdell points out recent findings which show that the rate of loss from ice sheets is doubling every six years, making the suggestion of a future decrease “highly unlikely”. … Ocean physicist Peter Wadhams of the University of Cambridge, who made the discovery that Arctic ice has thinned by 40 per cent over the past 25 years and also acted as a referee on the IPCC report, told New Scientist: “The public needs to know that the policy-makers’ summary, presented as the united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it.” Crispin Tickell, a long-standing UK government adviser on climate and a former ambassador to the UN, says: “I think David Wasdell’s analysis is very useful, and unique of its kind. Others have made comparable points but not in such analytic detail.” … “However, if it is true [that political pressure resulted in changes to the report], it’s disappointing.”, says Mike Mann, director ot the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University in University park and a past lead author for the IPCC. “Allowing governmental delegations to ride into town at the last minute and water down conclusions after they were painstakingly arrived at in an objective scientific assessment does not serve society well.“‘ … tasmaniantimes.com ================ Analyst Confirms IPCC Report ‘Watered Down’ By David L. Brown When the summary of the forthcoming fourth report on global warming from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was released last month, we wrote that the true magnitude of the problem was understated by the panel. Now an article in the current issue of New Scientist provides more evidence that that was indeed the case. The article, under the headline “Climate Report Was Watered Down,” says that “British researchers who have seen drafts of last month’s report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claim it was significantly watered down when governments became involved in writing it.” starphoenixbase.com ============= New Scientist: IPCC report watered down by governments References to the potential for climate change to happen faster than had been expected were watered down or removed from an international report on climate change after governments got involved, New Scientist reports. Most of the references to positive feedback (when a change in the climate leads to additional and enhanced changes) were cut from the final version of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, released last month in Paris, the magazine says. The story, published this week, relies heavily on a line-by-line analysis done by the British climate change analyst David Wasdell, who said he was "astounded at the alterations that were imposed by government agents during the final stage of review" of the report. "The evidence of collusional suppression of well-established and world-leading scientific material is overwhelming," he said. The story also quotes the University of Cambridge ocean physicist Peter Wadhams, who said the public needed to know that the policymakers' summary, "presented as the united words of the IPCC, has actually been watered down in subtle but vital ways by governmental agents before the public was allowed to see it". The Bush Administration has been accused of muzzling scientists who want to speak publicly about topics such as polar bears, the melting of sea ice and climate change. Leaked emails from the US Fish and Wildlife Service revealed that foreign travellers on US Government business were not allowed to speak on or respond to questions about these issues in any public forum, Reuters reported. planet2025news.net ============= Did Australia support US bid to nobble IPCC report? Prime Minister John Howard must disclose whether Australia has played a part in attempts to nobble the forthcoming report of the world's leading climate scientists. Greens climate change spokesperson Senator Christine Milne said reports that the US has been trying to nobble the next assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due out late this week, are deeply troubling. "This fourth assessment will be a significant statement on how climate change is affecting our world and what we can expect to happen in the next 100 years," Senator Milne said in Hobart. "Reports that the US is trying to water down the assessment are deeply troubling. The US has undermined international efforts to combat climate change for years, stubbornly refusing to join the Kyoto Protocol process. "US President George Bush has taken comfort from Prime Minister John Howard's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and support the international community's efforts to address a global problem. "Prime Minister Howard and President Bush both refuse to accept mandatory greenhouse gas reductions, trumpeting voluntary agreements instead. Now we find that the US tried to change the IPCC report to emphasise the benefits of voluntary agreements and to include criticisms of the Kyoto Protocol. "Prime Minister Howard must disclose whether Australia supported US efforts to undermine the work of the world's most eminent climate scientists who have written the IPCC report. "US suggestions that the world should waste valuable time and resources developing measures to reflect sunlight from the Earth back into space would be laughable if climate change were not such a serious issue. "If Prime Minister Howard's conversion to climate change realist is genuine he needs to stop undermining international efforts to act on climate change. The first thing he should do is to announce that Australia will ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and then he should speak to his good friend President Bush and convince him to abandon his kooky ideas wa.greens.org.au