气候变化的评论 如题

气候变化的评论
如题

綘鎵句簡涓夌瘒 浣犵湅琛屼笉琛?1.Global warming tops our list of science stories in 2007.Scientists say there is new evidence that the polar ice caps are melting at a faster pace.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it is 90 percent certain that human activity is linked to rising temperatures.Panel Chairman Rajendra Pachauri explains,"...what you have is solid scientific evidence." Pachauri's U.N.panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S.Vice President Al Gore,who said,"I'm going to speak an inconvenient truth,My own country is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali.We all know that." Gore's Academy Awarding winning film,An Inconvenient Truth,documents the effects of climate change.In other news,scientists uncovered a previously unknown,human settlement around Stonehenge,announced a new theory on the building of the Pyramids,and put King Tut on public display for the first time in 3,000 years.Scientists also had a remarkable discovery in Kenya - a 10 million year old jaw bone that may link mankind to the great apes.And in the fossil of a T-Rex,American researchers decoded soft tissue proteins linking the monstrous reptile to birds.Japan and China jumped into the space race in 2007,both launching their first lunar probes.NASA shared 3-D (three dimensional) images of the sun,and with three shuttle missions,stepped up construction of the International Space Station.Mechanical problems halted a fourth shuttle launch in December,but station construction resumes in 2008.2.The Oxfam report,called Climate Alarm,says natural disasters have risen from 120 annually in the 1980s to as many as 500 today.The report notes that while crises such as the African famines of the early 1980s,the Bangladesh cyclone of 1991 and the Asian tsunami caused an enormous loss of life,the new worrying trend is the increase in small to medium-sized disasters.The report's author,John Magrath,says most of these disasters now occur at unusual times."We think that 2007 has been a particularly bad year and also particularly strange year because of the unprecedented nature of many of these disasters.We are talking about some very unusual floods in West Africa,very unusual floods in East Africa,extraordinary floods in Mexico and parts of Central America,and heat waves in Greece,eastern Europe," said Magrath.One short disaster after another,even if relatively small,the report warns,can push poor people and communities into a downward spiral from which it is very difficult to recover.It says the tendency of rich countries is to prioritize their aid spending on more high-profile emergencies.They also focus on countries that are seen as being in line with their foreign policy priorities,the report says.Magrath says the people who are least responsible for climate change are the ones most adversely affected by it."There is a basic global injustice in this.It seems to us that the rich nations of this earth have the historical responsibility to act first and fastest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to show an example and to lead the way," he added."They also have the capability to do it and to begin to switch away from fossil fuels,to renewable energy,there is a huge potential for that,a huge market for that,it is about time some leadership was shown." Magrath expressed hope that the United Nations Climate Change conference set for Bali in December will present developed countries with an opportunity to seriously address climate change issues.3.In Al Gore's movie,An Inconvenient Truth,the dangers presented by global warming are shown in graphic fashion,with photos,maps and charts.In his view,there is no time to lose in addressing global warming.GORE:"That is what is at stake,our ability to live on planet Earth." The poster and cover art for the movie show a huge hurricane coming out of a smoke stack.But that image and much of what Al Gore presents in the film is rejected by one of the most respected men in the field of climate studies in the United States.William Gray,77,the principal force behind the annual hurricane forecasts done by Colorado State University's School of Atmospheric Science,has little good to say about Gore and his movie."He is making statements that I could never make.He is making assumptions that are just not true.I think there are many factual errors in his movie," he said.Gray rejects Gore's assertion that hurricanes are becoming more frequent and more intense as a result of global warming.A number of other scientists,even some who support Gore's position in general,have also questioned some of the claims made in the movie.But not William Gray.He does not dispute that the world is warming,but he does not see it as a crisis and he does not think emissions of CO2,methane and other gases have much to do with it."Yes,we have seen some global warming.I think it is primarily natural due to the global ocean circulation features," he added.Gray says the current warming trend is part of a natural cycle and that the world may soon enter a cooling phase.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently reported that climate change is accelerating even faster than had previously been predicted,adding to the urgent need to take action.But Gray and other critics say these predictions are based on unreliable computer models.He says the IPCC has a political agenda and that skeptics are kept out of the discussion."The IPCC and all these reports,I have been over 55 years working in the field and they never have come to me one time," he said."I have just been isolated and I know other colleagues of mine,who I respect for their knowledge.They never consulted them either.If they know how you think,they just leave you alone and go on." IPCC scientists reject such characterization of their consensus view and defend computer modeling as a way of understanding how greenhouse gases are affecting climate.Gray believes the cutbacks in fossil fuel use advocated by the consensus scientists would hurt the economies of the United States and other industrialized nations and,in the end,do little or nothing to stop global warming.He says all the attention focused on global warming is distracting people from the world's real problems."We have so many other important problems around the world that are much more critical," he explained."For instance,poverty,AIDS,terrorism,all these problems we have in the world.To me this global warming is sort of a red herring.They have been saying it is the greatest problem facing mankind now.That is a gross exaggeration." William Gray plans to write a book to refute Gore's and other global warming activists' arguments.He says he and other skeptics have been shunted aside and dismissed as "global warming deniers." Critics also claim the skeptics are financed by large oil companies,but William Gray says he has never taken any money from the energy industry.While he may not have convinced some of the scientists who believe in human-induced global warming,he may yet have a chance to make his case.Some scientists from the global warming camp are now saying that debate should be allowed.As Gray and other skeptics have argued,science is advanced through constant questioning and testing of hypotheses,not by consensus.