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The economic impact of global warming has been grossly underestimated and scientists must warn that inaction will spell disaster says top economist and climate change expert Nicholas Stern.
Stern told 2,000 climate scientists meeting in Copenhagen that they had failed to clearly tell humanity what it faces if global temperatures reach the upper range of forecasts made by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).
“There has been lots of scientific information on 2.0 and 3.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), but you have to tell people loudly and clearly just how difficult 4.0 or 5.0 would be,” he said.
New findings show that these projections were vastly understated, scientists here said…
Stern, whose 2006 Stern Review has become the benchmark for calculating the economic cost of tackling climate change, conceded that his report had also fallen short in assessing the potential consequences of global warming…
Katherine Richardson, head of the Danish government’s Commission on Climate Change Policy and a co-organiser of the meeting, agreed that scientists had not done a perfect job in getting the message out.
“Most of us have been trained as scientists to not get our hands dirty by talking to politicians. But we now realise that what we are dealing with is so complicated and urgent that we have to help to make sure the results are understood,” she told AFP.
Of course, college basketball may demand more of your attention, eh?
I thought global warming was a hoax Dvorak?
I remember hearing about global warming in the 80s. They talked about just a 1 degree rise in average temperature bringing disaster. Well, that’s happened and now they are talking about 4 to 5 degrees.
What’s going to happen when we reach that and we’re still going strong?
Basketball and Baseball suck.
#2 I remember “global cooling” and all the gov grant $ thrown at “climate scientists” to find a “solution”.
They found a solution all right, a solution to the dwindling gov grant money. LOL!
I don’t know if global warming is real or not, I don’t think anyone does.
I have learned to question the motives of those who scream the loudest on both sides.
It seems everyone screaming about how bad it’s going to be have their money invested in carbon credit / cap and trade companies. Or on the other side their research is funded buy oil companies.
For a discussion on the science of global warming I visit
http://www.icecap.us/
Keep in mind they may have a bias also!
Worried about hurricanes? Check this out…
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
Bring on the Endless Summer! It’s too cold in Maine!
Freaking groundhog. Only 6 more weeks of winter he said. Tuesday morning temperature was -42 C at the airport, in the -50s with the windchill. Freaking groundhog.
Sounds like they are afraid that the money will run out if they don’t ratchet up the rhetoric a notch.
So, What does it take to be called a climate scientist?
I’m regularly called an “Engineer” even though the only diploma I have is from high school. Are these guys actually qualified, or is it more like this: http://tinyurl.com/dnfvag
MORE GLOBAL WARMING NOW! YEEE HAAAA, BURN BABY, BURN!
Any of you putz’s out there who believe this garbage can pay my carbon offset taxes when Oblahblah gets them going. More taxes will right the planet’s atmosphere, riiiiight.
When the CHINESE start being concerned with so-called global warming, so will I and will happily pay Al Gore for my carbon offset credits. Nice that he is giving all his profits back to Mother Earth…not!
Global warming is nothing but hot air from people seeking to make (or steal) money on a global scale. To believe otherwise is to believe in the tooth fairy.
Nice to see them prognosticate like this even in the face of no net warming in 30 years and a continuing 9 year cooling trend that in the last 2 years has ACCELERATED!!!!
Go spread your fear elsewhere you religio-enviro-nuts!!!
Silly Hoomans. Attacking scientific issues with your “common sense.” Its what kept disease theory in the dark ages for a few centuries.
Putting the YOU in F&cktards.
[Duplicate comment deleted. Please don’t double post! – ed.]
Was there a huge anti-global warming study released lately? I can’t go anywhere without seeing every site spammed with global warming/world is ending soon/pay us taxes or we’re all going to die articles.
It’s not very green to waste all that electric posting these fictional stories all over the place.
So lets say its not true for arguments sake. Governments/countries which did nothing would have a serious competitive advantage over others.
So why are all these governments pursing it? The tax/government argument doesn’t work. So lets cling onto it’s ‘the evil scientists that will do anything for grant money’. I think that’s stupid – as governments would be more likely to fund research showing the opposite (they want to be competitive right?). And until fairly recently that’s what you have been seeing. As I’ve said previously – most scientists live for doing good science.. and _proving_ something controversial is what they live for and get big grants from.
I’ll also ask how many people denied that HFCs affected the ozone layer. And not only that but action by humans led to a measurable and world wide result. Similarly with acid rain.
Humans seem to have a real problem with tackling problems which occur over extended periods or more years. Take the petroleum problems of the 70s, it was pretty obvious a growing dependency on foreign oil should be dealt with. What happened?
Also the idea that ‘climate change’ is a ‘new branding’ that’s recent is wrong. In the Uk its been called that for more than 5 years. The issue is that although overall the average world temperature goes up, in some places it will get much colder, and in general more erratic. Thus ‘global warming’ doesn’t quite explain the situation – certainly for certain people where its locally getting colder. And use that as ‘proof’.
Still never mind – the raptures going to sort all this out for us apparently.
Cripes, can’t they get this right, ever? Now this. And what happened to all those hurricanes these same people were predicting?
This guy is not a scientist. I thought only scientists have credibility on the subject?
Reading the article, we can see that it is completely bogus. They are talking about a rise of 50 meters. Looking at the IPCC report, written by all the global warming scientists, they project somewhere around 1 meter, and the highest numbers I can find are 4-6m 125000 years ago, and Greenland adding 7m. True they say that they are not sure and they can’t give an upper bound on the sea level, but it’s clear that no credible scientist would support 50 meters.
The average temperature rise of 5 degrees is a little more reasonable, as two of their 6 scenarios have this in the high end of their estimate(for which they estimate .23-.59m of sea level rise, only off by a factor of 100).
Then there is the additional problem which is also in the IPCC reports, and I think it is due to not enough interaction between the people writing the different reports. To get high levels of warming, you have to have high levels of emissions, which in turn means lots of economic development.
However, the impact of climate change assumes poverty in the third world, and this is where they get all the devastation. But the people who created the warming scenarios assumed lots of development in the third world to get that warming. Some of the scenarios assume more economic development in Africa than the US had in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Whether or not the theory that all of the gasses that we are releasing through processes like combustion are insulating the planet and causing the temperature to rise is true or not, we are still releasing toxic gasses.
How long will it be until our cities/planet resemble the garage of someone trying to take their own life by letting their car run and fill the room with exhaust
Also reading the IPCC report
It is very likely that cold days, cold nights and frosts have become
less frequent over most land areas, while hot days and
hot nights have become more frequent. {WGI 3.8, SPM}
It is likely that heat waves have become more frequent over
most land areas. {WGI 3.8, SPM}
It is likely that the frequency of heavy precipitation events (or
proportion of total rainfall from heavy falls) has increased over
most areas. {WGI 3.8, 3.9, SPM}
It is likely that the incidence of extreme high sea level3 has
increased at a broad range of sites worldwide since 1975. {WGI
5.5, SPM}
So if these facts re no longer the case, then that should change their scientific conclusions, right? If not, why would scientists include them in their report?
The real story should be about how the worldwide recession is affecting emissions and the implementation of emissions standards.
Here we go again: the resident skeptics are making fun of scientists. Why do you, Yanks, always need to smack your face against a wall before you start considering reasonable arguments and available evidence? Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean the reality is going to adjust to your liking.
# 20 Proud Alien said, “Here we go again: the resident skeptics are making fun of scientists. Why do you, Yanks, always need to smack your face against a wall ”
I don’t know why the global warming alarmist won’t listen to scientists…
Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean the reality is going to adjust to your liking.
That’s exactly what the majority of the US is telling the right-wingers, but they have their fingers in their ears saying la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Boom…….There goes the Dynamite!
# 21: care to expand on your “alarmist vs scientists” statement? To the best of my knowledge, the scientists are the ones who raise the alarm on this subject.
# 24 Proud Alien said, “To the best of my knowledge,”
Sounds like you need more knowledge…
If policies are changed due to global warming fears, it will cause economic chaos. It does matter if the fears materialize or not. The only important thing is to use global warming to wrest control away from the people.
People do not need to drive to work when the global warming laws are put into place. Their jobs will go to China where there are no global warming laws.
Communism failed due to people not wanting to give up freedoms to a totalitarian regime. The Green movement is trying to take our freedom in a different way. Remember, Green is the new Red.
It is not about the planet. It is about control. Some commission will have veto authority on every decision you make, unless you are on the commission.
Hmmmm, there are alarmist alarmists now.
QB, lol… re alarmist alarmists…
Before, it was the arms race and the Cold War,
… now it’s the alarms race and the Warm War.