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And this was no ordinary jury that returned this verdict. This jury consisted of representatives from 113 governments, acting on the expert testimony of more than a thousand scientists from all over the world. Their verdict was summarized in a 21 page report, and you can download the entire report at http://www.ipcc.ch. Here are some of the highlights:
Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years. The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land-use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture.
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,
as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level.Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century.
Anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized.
This is not good news, people. And who would do such a thing? Who would deliberately harm their own Mother, who gave them birth, and nurtured them, and kept them safe and warm throughout their entire existence. Who could be so callous, and criminal? And who could be so ignorant, not to realize that by brutalizing their Mother, they are removing their own source of sustenance, and safety, and signing their own death warrant? Even the lowest of beasts knows not to foul its own nest.
Who stands accused of these heinous crimes? You and I do, that's who. All of us. We are all guilty. Anyone who drives a car. Anyone who buys mass produced produce under the fluorescent lights of a large supermarket conglomerate. Anyone who turns on an electric light powered by a coal burning power plant. Anyone who uses anything made from plastic, which is made from oil, and in the process spews tons of toxic greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Anyone who stands back and watches all this going on, and does nothing to try and stop it.
Remember when tobacco company executives stood up in court and shamelessly swore under oath that cigarette smoking was not harmful, even when all the scientific evidence proved that it was? And millions of people chose to believe the lies, and disregard the science, because they had become slaves to the addiction of nicotine. Well, here we go again. Only this time it's the oil company executives and their puppet politicians who are lying to us, and our fatal slavery to the addiction of fossil fuels that makes us want to believe those lies, and deny the science that has been warning us for many years of the dangers of that addiction.
Now we can deny it no more. The organization of scientists that produced this report is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and their report, released on February 2, 2007, is the first of three. This first report was specifically mandated to determine once and for all whether Global Warming was a fact, and whether it was being caused by Human activity. The entire world now knows that the answer to both questions is a resounding and very disturbing - yes.
So now what? Now we wait for the scientists' second report, to be released only two months from now, in April, 2007. This report will concentrate on the impact of global warming, on both planet Earth, and its inhabitants. A month later, in May, 2007, the third report will be released, dealing with the Mitigation of Climate Change - in other words, what, if anything, we can do about it. The significance of these reports cannot be overstated, and we would all be well advised to pay very close attention to what they have to say.
Look at the photo above of the lovely blue world that we are slowly but surely destroying. It was taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, looking back at Earth on its way to explore the moons of Jupiter. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful? How can we treat it so badly? If we destroy this Eden, we will be destroying ourselves as well, because there is nowhere else for us to go, and the legacy of an extinct species once known as Humans will be one of shame, and infamy. The subsequent two reports by the IPCC in the coming months will tell us whether there's any hope at all, and if so, what we must do to save our world, and ourselves. If there is hope, will we be strong enough to do what needs to be done? Let's hope so, because our very survival as a species will depend on it.
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