There’s a lot of climate change news recently, so I’m going to try to round it up in one article.

First, there’s the report itself. This is the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (IPCC) that’s been in the news a lot lately – written by 120 nations. Leaving aside the quality of anything produced by committee, it’s also the subject of an immense amount of political wrangling. The report itself ended up being 20 chapters and 1572 pages. This week produced a 21 page summary “for policymakers”.

The thing that bugs me about this is how anyone can present something that has been held up for negotiation as fact. I’m not disputing climate change… I tend to believe that even our dependence on petroleum isn’t the cause of it, it would really be for the best for us to no longer depend on petroleum the way that we do… but you don’t negotiate over something you claim to be scientific fact. You don’t negotiate over something you claim to be a logical consequence of observed phenomenon. It is, or it isn’t.

That said, for some reason none of the nations involved listen to me or bother to ask my opinion, so the summary was finished by its deadline and published today.

Possibly the most important conclusion of the report is that climate change is already happening. It’s not a prediction – observations show that the climate is changing, more rapidly than it had been in recent history.

In part, the report says that some areas considered to be particular “jewels of nature” have already suffered irreversible damage due to climate change, including corals, the rain forest, the Yangtze and Amazon rivers, the Bering Sea and the Himilayas.

Of course, the report predicts that, as usual, the poor will be the hardest hit. And we’re not talking America trailer park poor; we’re talking streets of Cairo poor, people living in mud huts poor. Whether it be bird flu or climate change, the poor have the hardest time dealing with it. Maybe it’s because they have the least resources?

But don’t worry, the USA isn’t left out; the report predicts that the southwestern US and Mexico could become even drier and return to the “dustbowl”-like conditions of the 1930s.

One species loss is another’s gain, though – this isn’t from the report, but some scientists say that climate change is actually benefiting fungi in southern England, as they are now fruiting twice a year and generally prospering.

In the end, though, one wonders whether the irreversible damage regions suffer is the damage of time marching on, of entropy, that the universe itself suffers, and what mankind’s real role in the drama is.

Via: CNN – Global warming report facing deadline
Via: Climate change is here now, says major report – earth – 06 April 2007 – New Scientist Environment
Via: CNN – Damage already done for some natural wonders
Via: CNN – Climate report: World’s poorest will suffer most
Via: CNN – Study: Climate change could bring new U.S. Dust Bowl
Via: BBC – Climate change fruitful for fungi
[tags]climate change, ipcc, negotiation, global warming, report, fungi, dustbowl[/tags]

|