Global Warming Hits 20-Year Milestone
Environmental News Network recently noted the 20th anniversary of the day Dr. James E. Hansen of NASA testified to Congress that worldwide temperatures had risen beyond the range of natural variability. Speaking before Congress on Congress June 23, 1988, Dr. Hansen said he was “99 percent certain” that humankind was altering global weather. Now, after 20 years of increasing emissions, stacks of scientific papers from the United Nations panel on climate change, and a popular movie called “An inconvenient Truth,” the country is finally beginning to wake up to what scientists were telling us years ago.
The New York TImes quoted Dr. Hansen as saying, ““If we don’t begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the next several years, and really on a very different course, then we are in trouble.” The scientist is calling for a global moratorium on coal burning by 2030 and said he’s making a new public push to bring global warming to the forefront of politicians’ consciousness because he wants the US to re-engage in treaty talks scheduled to culminate with a new climate pact at the end of 2009.
http://www.enn.com/sci-tech/article/37479
