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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (24811)	9/5/1998 3:48:00 AM
From: Krowbar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

From MSNBC, one of those in the well-known liberal media conspiracy SCIENTISTS BY and large accept that Earth's climate is changing because of the amount of so-called greenhouse gases humans are pouring into the atmosphere... And most of the scientific community thinks these gases are causing unnatural climatic warming that could have unimaginable effects on life. The consensus agrees that Earth has warmed by 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last century... ..."contrarians," a smaller but quite vocal number of scientists have publicly taken that line, some claiming global temperatures have not been rising, others seeing a rise that is within natural variations. The Marshall Institute, a leading group that questions "global warming," has proposed a 10-year delay on emission limits in order to gather more data. That delay, the Washington-based group estimates, would at most raise global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius, or 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit. ... Though loud, the contrarians are outnumbered by those scientists who see a danger. Some 2,000 scientists, experts and government officials prepared and signed off on the broadest international consensus ever on the issue: a 1995 report by what's known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. Based on 133 scientific publications, the report delivered a widely quoted conclusion: "The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate." Stephen Schneider, a Stanford University climatologist (is Stanford good enough, or are you looking for somebody trained at Pat Robertson's university?) who has advised the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations, is part of the consensus. He was one of seven experts drafted by Clinton in July 1997 to rally public support for action at Kyoto. For Schneider, the issue comes down to probability and the rate of change. What's more probable, he asks, extraterrestrial life or global warming? While there is no conclusive proof of either, there is strong indirect evidence of the latter. And that's why people should be worried, he argues. In his new book "Laboratory Earth," Schneider uses a financial example to make his point. Even a 10 percent chance of a catastrophe would motivate businesses or individuals to buy insurance, he argues, or possibly even take steps to reduce the likelihood of a catastrophe. As for the rate of change, most scientists accept that global temperatures have increased 1 degree over the last century. The more significant debate is whether such an increase is beyond Earth's natural variation. Citing "indirect" evidence, Schneider estimates that it's 90 percent likely that the change is not natural, "occurring perhaps no more than an average of once in a millenium during our recent interglacial history." msnbc.com Del