Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Chapter 4: 1995-2000
Cha-am Jamal, 2010
All rights reserved
1996, UN IPCC REPORT, Ahead of Geneva, the second follow up meeting on global
warming after the Earth Summit in Rio, the UN IPCC has issued a report that says that
humans are influencing global climate. Excerpts from the report issued in June 1996:
Earth’s temperature will rise by 3.6F in the next 100 years with serious negative effects.
Extreme temperatures will become normal. Habitats will change. Many plants and animals
will become extinct. Some regions will suffer water shortages. Polar ice will melt. The sea
level will rise. Emissions of greenhouse gases that trap solar energy will double by the
year 2010. A 50% reduction in emissions over the next 50 years is needed to reverse the
warming trend. We are currently not on track to meet emission reduction guidelines set
in the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. Yet the Rio commitments are not enough to halt global
warming.
1997, THE BBC MAKES THE CASE FOR THE KYOTO PROTOCOL, Twenty years of
hard data from meteorological stations and nature show clear warming trend. Growth
rings in Mongolian and Canadian trees are getting wider. Butterflies in California are
moving to higher ground once too cold for butterflies. Stalactites in Britain are growing
faster. The growing season for crops in Australia is getting longer. Permafrost in Siberia
and Canada is melting. The evidence is there anywhere you look. The warming rate is
one degree Celsius per century – enough to wreak havoc. The cause is the greenhouse
effect of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels as well as CFCs and HCFCs that trap heat. The
effect is being compounded as deforestation simultaneously removes trees that absorb
CO2. Some scientists are skeptical but the majority view is that the greenhouse effect is
real and it requires urgent action. This conclusion rests on the results from sophisticated
computer simulation models that give the best possible information on this topic even
though they are not perfect. These models are giving us scary accounts of the future and
we should be paying attention. The IPCC tell us that melting ice and thermal expansion of
oceans will cause the sea level to rise by one meter by 2037 and inundate low lying areas
and island nations. Extreme weather events will become common. El Nino and La Nina
cycles will become more extreme. There will be millions of climate refugees driven from
their home by global warming. Some regions of the world will become hotter, others
colder, some wetter, others drier. Entire weather systems will be dramatically altered.
The Gulf Stream will switch off making Europe colder. Tropical diseases such as malaria
will ravage the world as vectors migrate to higher latitudes and altitudes. Some wheat
farmers may be able to grow more wheat but the net effect of global warming is
overwhelmingly negative.
1997, THE ROAD TO KYOTO, In the Earth Summit of 1992 developed nations
promised to hold their year 2000 greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels but they have
not acted because of the perceived economic impact of cutting emissions. Forecasts show
that CO2 emissions in 2000 will be 14% above 1990 levels. Research in the USA and
Australia show that reduced emissions will mean reduced living standards while those in
Europe indicate emission reduction will actually have a positive effect on the economy.
The industrial lobby is stronger in the USA and it is opposed to emission reduction. The
Earth Summit agreement has to teeth because it cannot be enforced. The upcoming
meeting in Kyoto in December is expected to address these deficiencies with legally
binding cuts in greenhouse gas on a timetable.
1997, U.S. STANCE ON GLOBAL WARMING OFFERS COLD COMFORT, (LA Times)
The USA is out of sync with the rest of the world in the crucial ecological issue of global
warming. President Clinton’s statement was met with disdain in Bonn where 150 nations
are meeting to control global warming. The U.S. is seen as an environmental pariah in
this meeting.
1997, WORLD VIEWS ON GLOBAL WARMING (LA TIMES), Entire nations among
the Pacific islands vanish beneath the waves, coastal communities in the USA from North
Carolina to the Texas Gulf wash out to sea, wild swings in precipitation first bring drought
and then torrential rains and floods, coastal mudslides in California become routine, and
maple trees of the North die out and dengue fever and mosquito borne encephalitis move
in. In December delegates from 167 nations will go to Kyoto to write a binding treaty
among nations to fight against carbon dioxide emissions and save the planet. There are
serious implications for humanity if actions to curb global warming come too slowly.
1997, THE MYTHS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING, (Chicago Tribune) The union of
concerned scientists, President Clinton, and VP Gore have repeatedly stated that “the
threat of global warming is real and it is already here”. Yet, the IPCC has admitted that
none of their computer models of climate has been validated by the record. Man made
emissions of carbon dioxide are so small compared to natural emissions that they could
not possibly cause climate change.
1997, HOW MUCH TO CUT EMISSIONS AND BY WHEN DIVIDES NATIONS, A
global warming summit of 150 nations opened in Kyoto Monday. Its agenda is to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions that are causing potentially catastrophic increase in the earth’s
atmosphere. The summit is dogged by contentious economic, political, and scientific
questions. “People are still very cautious about acting on climate change because they
count the economic costs but not the benefits”.
1998, WEATHER TREND IS PROOF OF GLOBAL WARMING, Last year was the
hottest year on record and this decade has already produced 9 of the 11 hottest years of
the century. The data show that man made greenhouse gases are causing a potentially
disastrous warming of the earth. These data should help Pres. Clinton as he seeks Senate
approval for the Kyoto Treaty. That there is a human component in the rising
temperature is becoming clearer with each year’s measurements and the likelihood that
the rising temperature is a natural phenomenon is becoming increasingly remote. For the
last three years the data have pointed in the direction of man made global warming.
1998, IT’S OUR MOVE ON GLOBAL WARMING, The debate on global warming
started with the scientific question about whether the problem was real and evolved into
an economic and political debate between developed and developing countries on who
should act to reduce emissions. At the global warming conference in Buenos Aires this
weekend the USA signed on to the Kyoto Accord but there is stiff opposition to ratification
in the Senate without an equal commitment by developing nations.
1998, WORLD DEBATES GLOBAL WARMING, Climate scientists in the Hadley Center
on Climate Change have issued a report on global warming timed to coincide with the
meeting in Buenos Aires where delegates from 180 nations are meeting to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. The findings of the report are based on a computer model for
the case with no emission reductions are as follows: 1998 will be UK’s hottest year since
1106, “the warmest year of the millennium”; sometime between 2041 and 2070 we will
see a sharp rise in sick, hungry, and thirsty people; by 2048 the world’s forests will
become so degraded that they will change from net CO2 sinks to net CO2 producers
further accelerating global warming; human greenhouse gas emissions have contributed
substantially to global warming over the past half century; the climate model is validated
by its ability to reconstruct the last 150 years of climate conditions; the 1997-1998 El
Nino is the most extreme on record; in the next 100 years global temperatures will rise
by 6.0C – the most extreme in the last 10,000 years; the Amazon forest will die out and
rot releasing carbon dioxide; tropical grasslands will be transformed into deserts; For the
first half of the 21st century, vegetation will absorb CO2 at a rate of about 2-3 GtC per
year while human emissions of CO2 are about 7GtC a year; from 2050 onwards,
vegetation dying under the impact of climate change will itself add about 2GtC a year to
greenhouse emissions, further intensifying global warming; global warming will accelerate
due to "positive feedback" - a way by which the global warming we have caused will itself
cause further global warming; 170 million people will suffer from water shortage; Crop
yields will increase in areas like Canada and Europe, but nearer the equator they will
shrink; 18% more of Africa’s people will be at risk of hunger simply because of climate
change; sea levels will rise by 21 cm inundating 20 million people; malaria infection will
also increase, and in areas where it is not currently endemic. The overwhelming
consensus of scientific opinion is that climate change is real, and that we are playing the
chief part in causing it. The report confirms previous findings of the panel of scientists at
the IPCC, “the world’s most authoritative group of climatologists.
1998, GORE CLAIMS NEW DATA PROVE GLOBAL WARMING IS TAKING PLACE,
The first half of 1998 was the warmest six months ever recorded on earth. The month of
July, 1998 will also set a record. A heat wave in the Southwest has caused dozens of
deaths with the hottest weather to hit the state since 1980. Tuesday was the 9th straight
day that the temperature there had broken 100F. The heat wave is accompanied by
drought that will drain $4.6 billion from the Texas economy in the next few months.
Oklahoma had 6 deaths and Louisiana 20 deaths from the heat wave. According to NOAA
data the near surface temperature for June 1998 over both land and water were at an all
time high. There is no time in data history that we have seen this sequence of record
setting for six consecutive months. It is compelling evidence that global temperatures are
on a long term warming track. These are evidence of long term warming of the planet
by man’s greenhouse gas emissions. How much more proof do we need that global
warming is real? Congress must not block efforts by the White House to reduce heat
trapping greenhouse gases.
Jamal’s notes:
1. The Kyoto Protocol and the warm-up meetings in Geneva and Bonn
2. Differences between the USA and Europe in Kyoto
3. The differences between land based and satellite based temperature
measurements
4. A sharp rise in scientific rhetoric to rally policy makers to their cause in Kyoto
5. The bitter northern winter of 1995-1996 and its explanation in terms of global
warming
6. The 1998 climate conference in Buenos Aires.
7. The Clinton administration’s apparent endorsement of the global warming agenda.
8. New controversy about the West Antarctic Ice Shelf