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20 years

Report: Human activity “almost certainly” the cause of climate change

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August 21, 2013 (AFP) – Human activity is almost certainly the cause of climate change and global sea levels could rise by several feet by the end of the century, according to an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report leaked to media on Tuesday.

The draft summary of the report all but dismissed recent claims of a slowdown in the pace of warming, which has seized upon by climate-change sceptics.

“It is extremely likely that human influence on climate caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010,” The New York Times quoted a section of the leaked report as saying.

“There is high confidence that this has warmed the ocean, melted snow and ice, raised global mean sea level and changed some climate extremes in the second half of the 20th century.”

The IPCC is made up of several hundred scientists worldwide who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 along with former US vice-president and noted environmental campaigner Al Gore.

The scientists’ findings will be included in the next major United Nations report on climate change.

The leaked summary said the IPCC believed a worst case scenario could see sea levels rising by as much as three feet (90 centimeters) by the year 2100.

The language of the leaked summary appears to be stronger than in a previous UN report in 2007.

IPCC spokesman Jonathan Lynn emphasized in a statement that the quoted text was a draft version which may yet be modified.

Lynn said the document “is likely to change in response to comments from governments received in recent weeks and will also be considered by governments and scientists at a four-day approval session at the end of September.”

“It is therefore premature and could be misleading to attempt to draw conclusions from it,” he said.

Christopher Field, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science, told The Times that the draft had to reflect a wide range of views.

“I think that the IPCC has a tradition of being very conservative,” Dr Field said. “They really want the story to be right.”

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  • mhogan

    Here we go again … more propaganda for the goofy environmentalists. Can anyone imagine that God created man because he didn’t know how to extract fossil fuel from His Earth on His own. I mean, He did put it n the ground, didn’t He?

    • Jack

      No. God did not put “fossil fuel” into the ground.

      • mhogan

        Quite right. I stand corrected. Coal, oil, and natural gas were formed from organic remains of prehistoric plants and animals. But then the question begs: Was God so stupid that He didn’t realize the creatures or plant material He created would die and decompose? And of He created man, were we intended only to freeze to death. Surely, that would be too cruel. Ethereal perhaps, but an interesting debate nonetheless.

        • turbooperator

          We were given the tools to live, the tools to die and the freedom to choose. Who really is the stupid one here? Climate change notwithstanding, the path that we are on as a species is currently unsustainable.

          • mhogan

            Agree. As long as we keep propagating without regard to how to provide for the human race on this little planet. But that’s a choice some people can’t make (we’re not rabbits, after all)–taking responsibility goes beyond how best to control CO2; as if that will solve all our problems.

    • JSmith

      So you are assuming that all climate scientists are merely tools for “goofy environmentalists”? And please remember that the tobacco industry had once spent years citing hired pseudo-scientists in an attempt to prove that tobacco products were safe. As to your infusion of God into the debate, are you saying that because He created fossil fuels & people, that we should not concern ourselves with their use, rate of depletion or any negative consequences from such use? Would you say the same about Hitler or Charles Manson? Or, more to the point, about smog, pollution, or energy conservation in general? I believe that it makes more sense to say that God created us in such a way that we could intelligently deal with these things, as well as others that might result from greed, gluttony, the undue love of money and other forms of evil.

      • mhogan

        Hehehe. What a range of characters: God, Hitler, Charles Manson, and Greedy Corporations. May I remind you that “greed”, “gluttony”, the “undue love of money” and “other forms of evil” are not restricted to those with intelligence. And, no, not all climate scientists are tools, just the kind of character as Michael Mann and his hockey stick theory. I hear it was recently resurrected … and was broken again. Just like medical science, which changes its position on what’s good for you one day is bad the next (and then reverses it yet again), I think when it comes to MMGW, I’ll be a little less arrogant and wait for a few centuries to see if it’s an on-again-off-again-on again problem. Listen: climate changes. Get used to it.

  • MJ

    Global warming? Yes I believe it has been warming ever since the ice age.

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