The United Nations-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a major report with grim predictions about global warming for the coming decades last February 2007. Based on IPCC’s recent track record, the predictions will be no exaggeration.
As defined by National Geographic, global warming, or climate change, is a subject that shows no sign of cooling down.
And it is—and has been— happening, as the planet is already showing many signs of worldwide climate change.
Are we causing it? “Very likely,” the IPCC said in its February 2007 report.
The report, based on the work of some 2,500 scientists in more than 130 countries, also concluded that humans have caused all or most of the current planetary warming. Human-caused global warming is often called “anthropogenic climate change.”
Some of these causes include industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth’s surface.
We have the means to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the catastrophic consequences of global warming, a major climate report released recently concludes.
While we do not discount the fact that the financial crisis and turmoil happening to the country today is important, we should always remember that the Earth is the only place we have to live in. Ignoring the signs of climate change could be the end of the planet and the species—and we wouldn’t want that to happen. We still can do something about it, but fast—as we are running out of time. (AJPress)
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( Published on December 17, 2008 in Asian Journal Los Angeles p. A8 )
