photo: http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/12/13.html
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Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore delivers his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize during a ceremony in the City Hall in Oslo December 10, 2007.
So today we dumped another 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun. As a result, the Earth has a fever, and the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself : Nobel Laureate Al Gore
The mainstream press has all but ignored Al Gore's Nobel prize acceptance speech but it was, indeed, a call to arms, a call for global cooperation for an action plan to combat a global warming menace that will dramatically effect us all ~ and most certainly our children.
Gore's words are like the canary in the mine shaft and if we ignore his call for action any longer ~ and the artic ice melt accelerates ~ the canary will have already died and our long term human survival will be in jeopardy. Want more proof ?
Top 11 Warmest Years On Record Have All Been In Last 13 Years 13 Dec 2007 The decade of 1998-2007 is the warmest on record, according to data sources obtained by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The global mean surface temperature for 2007 is currently estimated at 0.41°C/0.74°F above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14.00°C/57.20°F.
Here are a few other known facts for any nonbelievers
1. Despite growing public awareness of global warming, the world’s carbon emissions are rising nearly three times faster than they did in the 1990s. As a result, many scientists tell us that the official, government-sanctioned forecasts of coming changes are understating the threat facing the world.
2. A rise of 2 degrees C over preindustrial temperatures is now virtually inevitable, according to the IPCC, as the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is approaching the destabilizing level of 450 parts per million. That rise will bring drought, hunger, disease, and flooding to millions of people around the world.
3. Scientists predict a steady rise in temperatures beginning in about two years with at least half of the years between 2009 and 2019 surpassing the average global temperature in 1998, to date, the hottest year on record.
4. Given the unexpected speed with which Antarctica is melting, coupled with the increasing melt rates in the Arctic and Greenland, the rate of sea-level rise has doubled with scientists now raising their prediction of ocean rise by century’s end from about three feet to about six feet.
5. Scientists discovered that a recent, unexplained surge of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is due to more greenhouse gases escaping from trees, plants, and soils which have traditionally buffered the warming by absorbing the gases. In the lingo of climate scientists, carbon sinks are turning into carbon sources. Because the added warmth is making vegetation less able to absorb our carbon emissions, scientists expect the rate of warming to jump substantially in the coming years.
6. The intensity of hurricanes around the world has doubled in the last decade. As Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research explained, "If you take the last 10 years, we’ve had twice the number of category-5 hurricanes than any other [10-year period] on record."
7. In Australia, a new, permanent state of drought in the country’s breadbasket has cut crop yields by over 30 percent. The 1-in-1,000-year drought exemplifies a little-noted impact of climate change. As the atmosphere warms, it tightens the vortex of the winds that swirl around the poles. One result is that the water that traditionally evaporated from the Southern Ocean and rained down over New South Wales is now being pulled back into Antarctica drying out the southeastern quadrant of Australia and contributing to the buildup of glaciers in the Antarctic the only area on the planet where glaciers are increasing.
