Globing Warming "Worse Than We Thought

[Kopkiwi]

Fact or myth?

The climate is heating up far faster than scientists had predicted, spurred by sharp increases in greenhouse gas emissions from developing countries like China and India, a top climate scientist believes.

"The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously," Chris Field, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.

Field said "the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious" than any of the climate predictions in the IPCC's fourth assessment report called "Climate Change 2007".

He said recent climate studies suggested the continued warming of the planet from greenhouse gas emissions could touch off large, destructive wildfires in tropical rain forests and melt permafrost in the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gasses that could raise global temperatures even more.

"There is a real risk that human-caused climate change will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide from forest and tundra ecosystems, which have been storing a lot of carbon for thousands of years," Field, of Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution for Science, said in a statement.

He pointed to recent studies showing the fourth assessment report underestimated the potential severity of global warming over the next 100 years.

"We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge surge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal," Field said.

He said that trend was likely to continue if more countries turned to coal and other carbon-intensive fuels to meet their energy needs.

If so, he said the impact of climate change would be "more serious and diverse" than the IPCC's most recent predictions.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4848581a12.html

[Xsjado]

At least it wont be as cold here in England :P

[Pez_555]

all words, no figures. Sure it could be worse, but I dont really care.

[Kopkiwi]

At least it wont be as cold here in England :P

Well summers are hotter, but winters are more harsh, will be more blizzards and such.

[scottscorpion]

hasnt the earth had an ice age then not an ice age then an ice age for millions of years...this is just an ice age ending....we have nothing to do with it......a single volcano eruption puts out more harful gases than we ever create....so hows it our fault....we will just have to adapt to our enviroment and if we cant we will be extinct....this is life.....if the goverment wanna steal by taxing us for this i think its an outrage

[gruddy]

Oh noes! The global warming is going to kill us!

I'm not bothered to be honest. If it gets warmer, I will wear more t-shirts. If it gets colder I'll wear thicker clothes.

[Mael Duin]

hasnt the earth had an ice age then not an ice age then an ice age for millions of years...this is just an ice age ending....we have nothing to do with it......a single volcano eruption puts out more harful gases than we ever create....so hows it our fault....we will just have to adapt to our enviroment and if we cant we will be extinct....this is life.....if the goverment wanna steal by taxing us for this i think its an outrage

What I remember hearing was that we are still living in the ice age. It still hasn't ended but its ending "soon".

[bubano]

Bull! The summers and winters are just as they ought to be. The climate has always changed itself.

[TTPS3]

sure we're probably speeding things up ... but the earth will compensate for it ... whats happening is just natural as proven by histroy ... we need to give earth a lot more credit ... its certainly been around longer and experienced more than us!

[Dave-The-Rave]

GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY !!

lol, still I find it suspicious how global warming only apparently started to happen in the last decade

[dc89]

The climate is changing, look at all the freak weather we have had here in the UK.

And the polar bears are dying

[Copyright]

Why are they telling us it is worse, and then not giving us how much worse?

[Bandersnatch]

No need to fear guys, I'm buying loads of carbon offsets as we speak!

[Kopkiwi]

Why are they telling us it is worse, and then not giving us how much worse?

Because the original figures they gave in 2000 were off, by a fare bit. Maybe they just want more concrete numbers this time.

[Point]

I think there's somehting happening to the environment, but not totally convinced it's us that's causing it. I mean there has been dramatic changes in climate before, and I highly doubt that the cavmen polluted the world

[clean515]

Moar global warming, it is amazingly cold here atm. Also i want more girls wearing not so much clothes.

[VintageElise]

The climate is changing, look at all the freak weather we have had here in the UK.

And the polar bears are dying

Noooooooooooooo! ( No sarcasm )

[JoNJoN]

This makes me want to eat alotta burritos and just fart my brains out so all you people freezing your butts off will feel some warmth from my dangerous polluting nitrogen and methane releases. Or does that only works for cows?

[Xelis]

Only thing I care about is Polar Bears survival, if we let them become extinct we (humans) are pure evil.

Thankfully we have abour 40 years to research and find a solution, which, at the current and future rate of technological advances we should have found a solution in a few years.

Greedy oil companies better keep their noses out of the research on 'free energy' too.

[the_End]

Meh, Global Warming.... seriously I'm just wondering if were going to get that huge solar flare in 2012 (yes, that's when they except it to happen....) that's going to knock out power to all of North America. Seriously, that better not ****ing happen in winter or else I'll be so ****ing pissed.

[Git]

I think Global Worming is more of an issue than Global Warming, but no one believes me!

[wunderless]

These the same people that were saying in the 70's that we are heading IN TO an ice age?
I'm not saying that we don't affect the environment around us, but I'm pretty sure that we can say that we don't have a firm grasp on how the world works. Mother Nature is still quite the wonder.

[Xelis]

Meh, Global Warming.... seriously I'm just wondering if were going to get that huge solar flare in 2012 (yes, that's when they except it to happen....) that's going to knock out power to all of North America. Seriously, that better not ****ing happen in winter or else I'll be so ****ing pissed.

Pure speculation from the 2012 doomsday club. Solar Flare activity hits the peak of its 11 year cycle during 2012. Basically, anything thats estimated to happen in the year 2012 is going to kill us all.

Euro 2012 is happening that year, I wonder if football will be the cause of our extintion .

These the same people that were saying in the 70's that we are heading IN TO an ice age?
I'm not saying that we don't affect the environment around us, but I'm pretty sure that we can say that we don't have a firm grasp on how the world works. Mother Nature is still quite the wonder.

We haven't a clue really, one minute scientists are saying were warming up the atmosphere, next minute they're saying they judged it all wrong, then they're saying global warming is in fact true, now its happening faster than they thought. Make your dam minds up.

[MrFenwick]

Thought is wasn't called Global Warming anymore... But its real. If you think we humans have no effect on the earth then get your head out of the dirt. Where causing a lot of problems and the weather pattern has been changing and it continues to change, if of course we actually stop and do something about it. But everyone is to worried about them selfs right now and don't give a crap about people in the future. We won't be there so what does it matter? Guess your childrens children will just end up having to fix it, your all to lazy and self centered to care.

[Blacksite]

You know, the funny thing is that if Global Warming was more of an immediate threat rather than something that gradually builds up from time to time, more people would actually care, and not just about themselves but their children and their children's children and how this will affect them all of them in the future.

Yet, I don't think it's about doing something now to divert Global Warming. Whose to say that it's already too late to stop some 'The Day After Tomorrow' s*** from happening? I'm not saying that it's right around the corner, that we should all just sit down and wait for it to happen and blow over. But if you're expecting every single person on the face of the Earth, or at least the majority of the people living to actually care, well, I honestly don't think that's going to happen.

Personally, I don't know what to think about it anymore. Some people call it a myth and other people say it's very real. I can't even take this seriously because like Xelis pointed out earlier, scientists can't even get their facts straight when they feel the need to constantly change and update their findings. No offense, MrFenwick, but that's how I see it.

It makes me wonder, if more people did care, we'd change more than just Global Warming.