GLOBESAVERS.org 

Mission of globesavers.org

To examine the causes and consequences of global warming, the evidence for it, and what can be done about it.

How global warming comes about

Some key evidence for global warming

Some consequences of global warming

What can be done about it?

What is being done about it already?

What can YOU do about it?

Global warming skeptics and defeatists

3/20/2007

Gobal Warming Blog
 

Lester Brown says that we can achieve that goal.  Brown, whom Time magazine calls “one of the U.S.’s most respected environmentalists”, summarized his views in a January 4, 2008 podcast by the magazine.  Brown says that in the last two years there have been a number of indications that the earth is warming faster than scientists had earlier predicted.  This summer’s melting of the Arctic ice cap that opened up a northwest sea passage was widely reported.  A mile thick glacier in Greenland that used to move at 120 meters per year is now moving at 2 meters per hour!  Glaciers in the Himalayas are now melting so fast that they will be gone by mid-century, with catastrophic consequences for the water supply of Asia.  And so on.  Therefore Brown concludes we need to speed up our efforts to a war-time tempo, beyond what is currently being planned, and he advocates an 80 % world-wide reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.
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April 2, 2007

The Park Forest Board of Trustees is currently considering a resolution to authorize the Village president to sign the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.  Under this Agreement the village and its government would be committed to trying to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 7% or more below 1990 levels by 2012.  More than 400 communities have already signed this Agreement.
In considering this important issue, it will be well to remember that until recent times environmental issues were not partisan issues in this country.  Republican Teddy Roosevelt was the first President to champion environmental issues.more>>
 

Feb. 26, 2007

            Many of you probably saw recent headlines to the effect that there is now “unequivocal” evidence that global warming is a fact and that most of it is most likely man-made.  The body that made this assessment is the IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) which is composed of thousands of leading climate scientists from around the world appointed by the U.N.

            In 1990, in its first report, the IPCC found evidence of global warming but said its causes could be natural as readily as human.

            In 1995, IPCC concluded that “the balance of the evidence” suggested a human influence on the global climate.

            In 2001, the IPCC report  put the probability that human activity caused most of the warming of the previous half century at 66-90%. more..

March 19, 2007 

About three weeks ago I wrote about the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, now signed on to by more than 400 U.S. communities, large and small.  The signers pledge to try to meet or exceed the Kyoto goals for greenhouse gas reduction by 2012.  This movement arose out of the frustration of many city officials with the lack of national leadership on the climate warming issue, even though the U.S. is the leading contributor of greenhouse gases.

This sorry state of affairs is highlighted by a report that the U.S. government’s own experts are due to file shortly with the U.N.  This report shows that, in absolute terms, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions will grow nearly as fast in the next decade as they did in the last one, when they grew 11.6%.  Unless we have a drastic change in policy, of course (New York Times, 3/11/07.)

One of the Illinois signers of the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement is Highland Park.  Talking with their City Forester, Larry King, last month I learned what significant progress Highland Park has made towards their goals under the Agreement.  Here are some of the steps Larry told me about that Highland Park has already taken towards meeting their carbon emission reduction goals.more >>

walterwalter falk 

Al Gore: "What will your grandkids say?"
(2 min.video - click here to watch) 
 
 

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