Dire Warming Report too Soft, Scientists Say (LA Times, via CommonDreams)

[marmar]

Published on Saturday, April 7, 2007 by Los Angeles Times
Dire Warming Report too Soft, Scientists Say

By Alan Zarembo / Thomas H. Maugh II

A new global warming report issued Friday by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of Earth’s future: hundreds of millions of people short of water, extreme food shortages in Africa, a landscape ravaged by floods and millions of species sentenced to extinction.Despite its harsh vision, the report was quickly criticized by some scientists who said its findings were watered down at the last minute by governments seeking to deflect calls for action.

“The science got hijacked by the political bureaucrats at the late stage of the game,” said John Walsh, a climate expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who helped write a chapter on the polar regions.

Even in its softened form, the report outlined devastating effects that will strike all regions of the world and all levels of society. Those without resources to adapt to the changes will suffer the most, according to the study from the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“It’s the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit,” said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, which released the report in Brussels.

The report is the second of four scheduled to be issued this year by the U.N., which marshaled more than 2,500 scientists to give their best predictions of the consequences of a few degrees increase in temperature. The first report, released in February, said global warming was irreversible but could be moderated by large-scale societal changes.
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The Bush administration quickly made it clear that it would not be stampeded by the report into taking part in the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol, which seeks to limit emissions of carbon dioxide. The U.S. withdrew from the protocol in 2001, saying it was too expensive and did not impose enough controls on developing nations.

“Each nation sort of defines their regulatory objectives in different ways to achieve the greenhouse reduction outcome that they seek,” said Jim Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, during a teleconference Friday from Brussels.

Sharon Hays, associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, noted in the same teleconference that “not all projected impacts are negative.” .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/07/363/