Fourth IPCC Report
The fourth IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report is out, and people are starting to address it. But its still too early for anyone to have really studied it, as the differing opinions seem to show. Lenarte Artesanato quotes the Washington Post’s reporting that climate change is “irreversible”, while Science Daily moderates the “irreversible” aspects of the report with quotes from the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and others:
The report states that “neither adaptation nor mitigation alone can avoid all climate change impacts. However, they can complement each other and together can significantly reduce the risks of climate change.”
The Secretary-General, who is in Valencia at the end of an international trip that has taken him to both Antarctica and the Amazon rainforest, said he had witnessed first-hand the perils posed by climate change.
“I can tell you with assurance that global, sweeping, concerted action is needed now. There is no time to waste.”
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Director Achim Steiner agreed, saying “we now have the compelling blueprint for action and in many ways the price tag for failure – from increasing acidification of the oceans to the likely extinctions of economically important biodiversity.”
Michel Jarraud, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), called for more detailed and continuing observation of the impact of climate change to help individuals, businesses and civil society make informed decisions about how best to adapt to meet their own circumstances.
Battle lines will be drawn along the same lines as before, with some urging immediate and drastic steps, others dismissing the science as faulty and politicized, and most of us here in the middle wondering what we should really do.
