In article <j54a135uj25dpnj2jufr0dj05imrl92rar@4ax.com>,
Captain Compassion <daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net> wrote:

Global warming happens: but is it "catastrophic"?
Wed Apr 4, 2007 9:10AM EDT
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Likely headlines predicting a global warming
"catastrophe", "disaster" or "cataclysm" after a U.N. report due on
Friday risk sapping public willingness to act by making the problem
seem too big to tackle, some experts say.

The world's leading climate scientists, meeting in Brussels, are set
to warn of more hunger in Africa, rising seas, species extinctions and
a melting of Himalayan glaciers in the April 6 report about the
regional impacts of climate change.

But the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), grouping 2,500 scientists, does not use words to sum up the
forecasts -- unlike some politicians or headline writers who describe
it as a "crisis", "terrifying" or "Armageddon".

"I'm a bit preoccupied that the media, having contributed to every day
making another doomsday news headline, then in six weeks time will
declare it hysteria and move on," said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N.
Environment Program.

Still, Steiner said it was clearly right to use words like
"catastrophe" to describe effects such as a projected rise in sea
levels in coming centuries that could swamp Pacific island states or
cities from Shanghai to Buenos Aires.

"It is legitimate to use those words in specific scenarios," he told
Reuters. "But does that mean that the whole climate change debate
should be about doom and gloom? No, because we are finding that we can
do something about it."

Mike Hulme, head of the British Tyndall research Centre, said
headlines in the British media after a previous U.N. report in
February, giving an overview of global warming science, used
adjectives such as "shocking", "terrifying" or "devastating".

PARALYSIS

"Such appeals often lead to denial, paralysis, apathy and even
perverse reactive behavior," he wrote in a letter to the journal
Nature. He said U.S. media used less startling language.

"Campaigners, media and some scientists seem to be appealing to fear
in order to generate a sense of urgency," he wrote. "If they want to
engage the public in responding to climate change, this is unreliable
at best and counter-productive at worst."

And skeptics, meanwhile, say strong words exaggerate dangers. U.S.
Republican Senator James Inhofe in 2003 called the threat of
"catastrophic global warming ... the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on
the American people".

U.N. officials say the IPCC wants to avoid allegations of
scaremongering in its reports that link greenhouse gases from burning
fossil fuels to warming. That means many people need a dictionary to
read IPCC reports.

The IPCC's main conclusion in its February report was that it was more
than 90 percent probable that mankind was to blame for most global
warming since 1950.

It wrote: "Most of the observed increase in globally averaged
temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the
observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."
Anthropogenic means caused by humans.

Some U.N. agencies use clearer language.

"The matter is serious," according to the U.N.'s Climate Change
Secretariat in Bonn. "Predictions of future climate impacts show that
the consequences could vary from disruptive to catastrophic."

http://elihu.envy.nu/NeoPics/Report.jpg

On Apr 5, 8:12 am, Captain Compassion <dar...@NOSPAMcharter.net>
wrote:

Global warming happens: but is it "catastrophic"?

It depends on who you ask..
For your trout warming would be catastrophic.

Gottendammerungen for your Pisces, even.

On Apr 5, 8:12 am, Captain Compassion <dar...@NOSPAMcharter.net>
wrote:

Global warming happens: but is it "catastrophic"?

It depends on who you ask..
For your trout warming would be catastrophic.

Gottendammerungen for your Pisces, even.