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The report does not contain the word gender. The summary does. Makes me think that - like most things from the UN - the report says the opposite of the summary, and the summary is the political statement that is spread through the media (for example, did you realize the IPCC reports actually state that climate is too chaotic to accurately model - but the well-publicized summaries state otherwise?). Gender inequality is in the summary - it's not in the report. How did it get into the summary?

You're gonna have to explain that.

Gladly. Shithole nations are followers in every way. We brought them technology, products, processes, and money by the bucketload. The Vietnamese who are pouring mountains of plastic into the ocean didn't invent these, they were introduced to them by western nations.

As such pointing the finger to their waste without demonstrating a suitable alternative is disingenuous.

Fascinating rationale. Problem is, the alternative to just plopping the plastics into a river that ends up in the ocean has been around a while: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . Especially that in some of these countries, labor is in ready supply, and one of the issues - that of sorting - can be largely taken care of.

They learnt to drink from plastic bottles from us, it's up to us to demonstrate that they can live without it too.

I doubt that living without plastic is practical. Recycling is practical.

Despite my flippant comment the USA still is the most powerful nation in the world. Do not underestimate the amount of influence it has on waste from these countries. And despite my comment I don't call out USA alone here. All western nations have a role to play, not the least those such as Australia who actively exported their plastic waste to they very countries which are accused of polluting the oceans with it.

We should once again become the leaders we have always claimed to be.

There seems to be an undercurrent that China buys this plastic, then dumps it. Strange business model, that. What they did do, was process plastic and paper. Did do, because they stopped https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...

Now, between you and me and the voices in our heads, there is precious little that the US can do by itself. Or Europe. We can stop sending our recyclables to China, and do our own recycling, that's been taken care of by the Chinese. We can do other countries recycling, I suppose. That really seems like the sort of thing individual countries should do.

Probably the only thing that might work is the present United Nations effort. But it is kind of weird, having to act like it is the USA's problem, while making rah rah about the efforts in the countries that are responsible. http://web.unep.org/unepmap/un... . Note that particular link is pretty innocuous, but I receive notices, some acting like the USA banning plastic straws for waxed paper ones will cure the problem. Or that these brave intrepid countries are cleaning the oceans of the USA's criminal activities.

So I guess they have figured that they need to lowkey pump the very fashionable hatred of the USA and sneak some concept of non-piggishness to these countries through the back door to get things done. Global politics, amirite?

In the end, the concept of those doing the inventing - (do you blame Charles Goodyear, Alexander Parkes, or the person who discovered chicle?) as responsible for the utterly disgusting habits of other people is stretching logic to the snapping point of a synthetic rubber band.

In fact, this problem has at base the problem of too damn many people.

But there is a worse problem. Does one improve the health and fecundity of people who might have simply lived short lives in step with their mental outlook, or is one better to leave them alone and eliminate the problems that occur from over rapid population growth? In the weirdest twist of the blame the USA bogeyman, we are sort of responsible for extending the lifespan of people in these countries.

The real problem is that /. thinks this post should be modded down as a troll. This is well-documented, and not just from those sources that /. doesn't like.

How about the actual research that produced all the articles? Is that a source worthy of being believed here?

https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstr...

It turns out, actually, that humans are very good at solving problems. Once we clearly identify a problem, there are a lot of people who are willing to work hard at finding solutions.

True that.

The drop in production of ozone destroying CFCs started well before the Montreal protocol-- humans stopped using the ozone-destroying CFCs without being legally required to.

Whilst not speaking to cause the UNEP ozone secretariat does report on ozone consumption per its obligations under the Montreal Protocol. It reports consumption and effect of ozone through reporting mechanisms.

The US's consumption can be clearly seen using the Data Reporting Tool and it is in line with the consumption of the producer, The Paducah nuclear fuel enrichment facility for the years it was operating.

I think you are right to say that industry did a good job of reducing their consumption, they did. I looked at the EPA data in 2009 and Paducah facilities consumption was five times that of the second largest consumer in the US. Consequently if you look at the UNEP data the US submitted for the years 2000-2016 you will see Paducah's consumption during operation, winding down and retirement was large enough to maintain the hole in the ozone layer.

I would post a link to the EPA data however it is no longer available online.

It turns out, actually, that humans are very good at solving problems. Once we clearly identify a problem, there are a lot of people who are willing to work hard at finding solutions.

True that.

The drop in production of ozone destroying CFCs started well before the Montreal protocol-- humans stopped using the ozone-destroying CFCs without being legally required to.

Whilst not speaking to cause the UNEP ozone secretariat does report on ozone consumption per its obligations under the Montreal Protocol. It reports consumption and effect of ozone through reporting mechanisms.

The US's consumption can be clearly seen using the Data Reporting Tool and it is in line with the consumption of the producer, The Paducah nuclear fuel enrichment facility for the years it was operating.

I think you are right to say that industry did a good job of reducing their consumption, they did. I looked at the EPA data in 2009 and Paducah facilities consumption was five times that of the second largest consumer in the US. Consequently if you look at the UNEP data the US submitted for the years 2000-2016 you will see Paducah's consumption during operation, winding down and retirement was large enough to maintain the hole in the ozone layer.

I would post a link to the EPA data however it is no longer available online.

Pretty significant

About half of the world's population lives within 60 km of the shore.

If that shoreline rises just a few dozen feet, then you will see a huge movement of people and loss of wealth while warm-weather diseases like malaria spread north and south out of the tropics.

Of course, if all of Antarctica melts, the sea level rise will be about 70 meters, or 230 feet and you will see mass migrations of people across ownership and national lines. Kiss New York goodbye, same with all of the coastal cities to the east, south and west.

But, hey it was all molten lava at some time in the last few billion years, so who cares. Let's get some more money out of fossil fuels while we can.

Most of California isn't a desert, and most of the desert parts of California don't have trees (because, you know, it's a desert).

Most of the world's landmass at SoCal's latitude is desert. This band is called the Hourse Latitudes. Southern California is at the same lattitude as the Sahara desert.

Seems like it's covered in the general 7.16 plus some area.

China accounts for three-quarters of East and Southeast Asian emissions, or about one third of the globalÂtotal.

Given a population of around 1.36 billion out of 7.3 billion, I get a bit over double the per capita atmospheric emissions of the rest of the world. Meanwhile from the heatmap, I see that a North America cell which includes the lower 48 and a strongly polluting Mexico contributes 7.2%, That's less than a factor of four. Including Mexico's population, it's about a third the size of China. I think that's good enough to indicate that China emits several times more atmospheric mercury emissions per capita than the US does.

That's all you're going to get. I don't see the need to do the same for particulate matter or the other measures of pollution that I consider more important than CO2 emissions. I'll just note that both China's regulations are much less strict than the US's on this stuff and they have laxer enforcement of those regulations.

Very poor citations: "Livestock systems occupy 45% of the global surface area" Really? Let's assume that they were stupid and really meant 45% of the LAND area of the globe. Even then estimates from 2000 put all agriculture usage (not just animal agriculture) at 30% of land area:
http://www.unep.org/resourcepa...

"Dr Schnieider was warning of the dangers of global cooling" He wrote a paper speculating that the effects of aerosols would be greater than that of global warming. His was a minority view and he was wrong.

"By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people"
Firstly, Ehrlich is a biologist, not a climatologist. Secondly, he was talking about overpopulation, not climate change.

"Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000"
But that's a prediction about the future, not now. Global warming wasn't reverse by the year 2000 and Bangladesh in particular is going to face a lot of difficultly this century.

"Amid predictions that by 2010 the world will need to cope with as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of creeping environmental deterioration, ..." Firstly I have no idea what the actual numbers are escaping drought, famine etc, but I just checked http://www.unep.org/cpi/briefs... . Apparently the predictions were by Norman Myers and unep claims they were never their forecasts. His predictions also don't appear to be mainstream at all. He seemed to have this strange idea that _all_ people just leave a region when there are extreme weather events like droughts when they don't (even in cases of war etc).

"let's throw in our favorite leader of the global warming movement, Al Gore" Al Gore is a politician. A politician is only as reliable as the information he gets and has no particular expertise. "The polar ice caps have actually INCREASED since then, significantly" Nope http://earthobservatory.nasa.g... There is a lot of variability, but the trends are pretty apparent and the lowest extent was in 2012.

Here the Washington post have a visual of the same thing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/... . Again there is variability but the trends are pretty obvious. Nothing to justify saying it would be clear (as far as I can see) by 2013, but the trend is still there.

Edit: Same post but with the formatting fixed.

"Dr Schnieider was warning of the dangers of global cooling" He wrote a paper speculating that the effects of aerosols would be greater than that of global warming. His was a minority view and he was wrong. "By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people" Firstly, Ehrlich is a biologist, not a climatologist. Secondly, he was talking about overpopulation, not climate change. "Entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000" But that's a prediction about the future, not now. Global warming wasn't reverse by the year 2000 and Bangladesh in particular is going to face a lot of difficultly this century. "Amid predictions that by 2010 the world will need to cope with as many as 50 million people escaping the effects of creeping environmental deterioration, ..." Firstly I have no idea what the actual numbers are escaping drought, famine etc, but I just checked http://www.unep.org/cpi/briefs... . Apparently the predictions were by Norman Myers and unep claims they were never their forecasts. His predictions also don't appear to be mainstream at all. He seemed to have this strange idea that _all_ people just leave a region when there are extreme weather events like droughts when they don't (even in cases of war etc). "let's throw in our favorite leader of the global warming movement, Al Gore" Al Gore is a politician. A politician is only as reliable as the information he gets and has no particular expertise. "The polar ice caps have actually INCREASED since then, significantly" Nope http://earthobservatory.nasa.g... There is a lot of variability, but the trends are pretty apparent and the lowest extent was in 2012. Here the Washington post have a visual of the same thing: http://www.washingtonpost.com/... . Again there is variability but the trends are pretty obvious. Nothing to justify saying it would be clear (as far as I can see) by 2013, but the trend is still there.

http://www.scientificamerican....

Solar is the real eye opener and should serve as a lesson on blindly trusting hype and "What seems obvious." Solar panels are terrible for the environment,

It's always important to remember that there's no such thing as free energy. That said, the linked graph doesn't say anything about solar being "terrible for the environment", only that other sources of electricity consumes* very little silver compared to solar (as Scientific American also notes in the graph). Importantly, it does not show how that use compares to e.g. worldwide silver use.

* "consumes"? "wastes"? "produces as a byproduct"? Pretty sure that oil energy (or biomass!) doesn't consume uranium, even if drilling for oil produces it as a byproduct. Not sure what exactly is being graphed here, honestly. Unfortunately, the cited report is paywalled.

Anyway, if you look at the other report cited by Scientific American as the graph source, in figure 4 on page 19, it shows the global material requirements (in giga-grams, that is, kilotons) under various energy mix scenarios. Neither silver or tin use even registers on the graph in the so-called "non-fossil" scenario (mix of solar, wind and hydro - and no nuclear). In other words, in the "non-fossil" scenario, silver and tin usage for power is less than 1 kiloton a year. Worldwide silver use in 2013 was 34 kt.

As a bonus, silver recycles better than aluminum, with energy savings of 96% (table 4.4).

Also, from the cited report:

http://ozone.unep.org/Assessme...

"Total column ozone declined over most of the globe during the 1980s and early 1990s, by about 2.5% in the global mean, but has remained stable since 2000. There are indications of an increase in global-mean total column ozone over 2000–2012, consistent with model predictions. However, a total column ozone increase that would be attributable to ODS decreases has not yet been observed."

Money quote: "However, a total column ozone increase that would be attributable to ODS decreases has not yet been observed."

One part conveniently left out is the military's part in this, they want fiber optics for a bunch of NATO surveillance activities, polar satellites and so on. It's pretty obvious why if you look at a map. Supplying the about 2600 permanent inhabitants with really fast broadband (100% fiber optics now) is just a side effect. True, this cabin area about 3 miles from the main settlement wasn't originally included in the plans, but when the inhabitants dig the ditch and all the fiber company has to do is roll out the cable drum it's a pretty good deal for them too. There are several rural areas - though not quite that remote - here in Norway which has done the digging as a community effort to make the cost bearable for the fiber company. Just last quarter the median broadband in Norway passed 10 Mbit/s, the mean is 18.4 Mbit/s and improving at a nice pace.

If the city really still uses incandescent light bulbs - someone confirm? - then indeed savings are ahead. Most of the rest of the world switched to high-pressure sodium years ago.

If the city already switched to sodium, it's hard to see that it's an improvement:

low-pressure sodium: up to 183 lm/W [http://www.sla.net.au/sites/default/files/SLP.Pdf ]

high-pressure sodium vapour lamp: 93 lm/W [http://www.unep.org/climatechange/mitigation/sean-cc/Portals/141/doc_resources/TrainingEEtechnologies/EE%20Lighting_Asthana.pdf]

LED: 100-120 lm/W according to manufacturers

or worse: 50 lm/W
[http://www.ledlightingexplained.com/led-lighting-myths/]

Wasn't it drilling regulations that pushed drilling further and further offshore to much deeper (and risky) areas?

Anyway, there's vastly more oil migrating into the ocean from natural seepage than from the odd oil spill, so if you don't want oil in the water perhaps that's a better place to start :p

http://oils.gpa.unep.org/facts/natural-sources.htm

... There's actually less evaporation in total than if the reservoir weren't built....

In the world I live in increasing the area of water surfaces increases evaporation since there is a larger surface to lose water from. Water losses from reservoirs is an important problem in areas with scarce water resources: http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/article46.html .

Creating reservoirs has a very considerable effect on the surrounding environment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_reservoirs . This dude wants to be free from considering the costs he places on others.

We replaced CFC's with 'green' versions, but did that really help?

Yes

there are now about 19.2 million people officially recognized as "persons of concern"-that is, people likely to be displaced because of environmental disasters. This figure is predicted to grow to about 50 million by the end of the year 2010.

Note that the number is not environmental refugees, but actually persons of concern. There is a huge difference between the two, and the second is probably not inaccurate.

Now, on the website in question, UNEP said this

Fifty million climate refugees by 2010

This is obviously not what the original researchers were claiming. Who knows why UNEP put that on their website, but it is most likely an error of their PR agency, not of their science. In short, the scientists were probably right, but the propagandaists were wrong.

This article clearly demonstrates what's wrong with America's science reporting. If the UN had released a report claiming 50 million global warming refugees by 2010, there would be dozens of news articles on it. The supposed incriminating evidence is a Google Cache page with this map that doesn't itself say anything about refugees, but does highlight areas most susceptible to sea level rise. The "50 million climate refugees by 2010" statement is not referenced anywhere in any UN report, it's a six words on one defunct graphic that was part of a larger report on world agriculture by the UN University. This 50 million by 2010 figure comes from Dr. Bogardi at the UN University in Bonn, NOT the United Nations.

The problem with this prediction being made by any scientist is that keeping track of how many refugees there are is difficult (current estimate by the UN is 1 million a year, a figure that the Red Cross lends support to with the statement that environmental disasters are displacing more people than war now) and the causes are debatable. The epic flooding in Pakistan created 10 million refugees, Hurricane Katrina added a quarter of a million refugees, and desertification in Africa is displacing millions. Can we blame these events on Global Warming? Hurricanes and floods happen without a warming world, but a warming world increases the chances of such disasters happening.

Then there are the refugees that no one realizes. In the small coastal town where I live in North Carolina, houses have been falling into the swamp one by one for decades, but the residents blame it on people building their homes in flood zones, not realizing that sea levels in their state have risen three times the rate of rise on the rest of the Atlantic coast. People didn't build their homes in the water, the water rose 1.5 meters over the 50 years since they were built, but nobody realizes this because of landscape amnesia.

You can read all about the various estimates concerning environmental refugees on Wikipedia. It took the author of this untruth less than an hour to post their nonsense and the deniers flooded the Internet with it quickly. It took me two hours to research and write this response, because I wanted to know what I was talking about, and I will only reach a very small audience in comparison. This is why I despair when considering how science could possibly stand a chance against the overwhelming confidence ignorance brings the unscientific masses.

Bill, look over that report.What it shows is that even in the 90's, North American emissions were LOW. We were lower than EU and China. Check page 18 to get an idea of Hg emissions from coal as a percentage. Then look at page 22 to get an idea of emission since 1990. You will see that CHina continues to grew the emission, while US and EU dropped. Then look at what they HOPE will happen in another 15 years on page 24. What should be a real eye opener is that Hg emissions will DOUBLE in Asia in 10 years. While the rest of the world will continue to put on more controls.
This Hg is far more damaging than just about anything else that Asia, and the entire world can spit out. The reason is that items like CO2 CAN be cleaned up, but mercury will remain in the ecosystem for centuries.

Both are contributing to sea level rise so the net effect is loss of ice. See page 3 here: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/PDF/Ch3_compendium2009.pdf

The whole report can be found here: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/

Both are contributing to sea level rise so the net effect is loss of ice. See page 3 here: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/PDF/Ch3_compendium2009.pdf

The whole report can be found here: http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/

Is it me or is the point of this article "feel guilty for doing anything with your computer 'cause it ruins the planet thank you very much you bastard"? while acting like using power is inherently polluting whereas it really depends on the source?

Renewable energy represents 5 percent of global power capacity and 3.4 percent of global power generation. source
So, for around 97 users out of a hundred, doing anything with your computer ruins the planet thank you very much you bastard!

I am all for green energy and using proper reusable resources, but don't be counting your chickens before they are laid, let alone hatch.

Coal + sequestration is still *significantly* cheaper than solar and will be for the next 20 years at least.

That's because coal is subsidized and external costs are passed on the everyone, whether they use coal or not. If coal plants had to make it on their own and pay for their Externalities electricity costs would be a lot higher. Heck, even the Nuclear Power Industry uses coal's external costs as a selling point.

And dont mention Hydro.
The greenies hate that because it destroys habitats. :)

Some don't like hydro because frequently dams do not live up to their promise or the costs out weight the benefits [pdf]. "World Commission on Dams Report vindicates unjustifiability of large dams".

Yes, i was thinking the same while reading that disconcerting study by the UN: http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/report/GEO-4_Report_Full_en.pdf [http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/media/index.asp] its about time we stop hitting on each other and find some solutions.. but hey, i know it's pretty idealistic and won't happen anytime soon.

"Who is to say warmer won't be better?"

Better for who? ... That's the key to why you are wrong to think it could be better. If its better for 1 person and worse for say 10 people, then overall its worse.

For example, to quote the UN Environment Programme (4 June 2007):
"Impacts are likely to include significant changes in the availability of water supplies for drinking and agriculture, rising sea levels affecting low lying coasts and islands and an increase in hazards such as subsidence of currently frozen land.

An estimated 40 per cent of the world's population could be affected by loss of snow and glaciers on the mountains of Asia says the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in the Global Outlook for Ice and Snow.

Similar challenges are facing countries, communities, farmers and power generators in the Alps to the Andes and the Pyrenees, says the report."

Here's the link, its got a lot more details of the effects:
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default .asp?DocumentID=512&ArticleID=5599&l=en

An extensive impact study of the Asian Brown Cloud can be found Here.

Also some "Quick Facts" on the Asian Brown Cloud may be found Here.

And well, if you just Google it, you can become a complete expert!

Could Asia be doing itself in here? Surely, the ABC has a significant impact on their environment that simply cannot be ignored -- unless, that it, your goal is to milk the West of money. But hey, perhaps the ABC is having a significant impact on our climate here in the West and perhaps we should be bilking them for money!

Ain't Geopolitics grand?

You have inside crude a mix of very light organic element, and some downright long chain. Some part of it will indeed evaporate over time (the lighter element). But i think the Tar and most long chains, what most people think when picturing crude, will not evaporate over time. And most probably this is the first to fall down on the bottom of the sea to be decomposed :

how crude behave with time

"There are plenty of other places in our own world that could probably benefit from the discovery of water...try Africa.

Hum, check out the predictions: http://www.unep.org/vitalwater/21.htm - the US and half of Europe could be joining the club soon.

those images, and more, are published in:

http://www.earthprint.com/show.htm??url=http://www .earthprint.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay? prrfnbr=592462&prmenbr=27973/

learn more here...

http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default .asp?DocumentID=434&ArticleID=4806&l=en/

This is my last rejected submission on climate change - posted anonymously to avoid karma-whornig accusations.

New evidence of climate change unprecedented in human history seems to arrive almost every day. Two new studies have added more data to the mountain of evidence supporting the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis. A UN Environmental Program report shows that the world faces a 'staggering threat', with the Arctic already being severely affected, with thawing of much of the sea ice and the Greenland icecap predicted.

The extinction of polar bears and seals seems likely. Worse, the decrease is salinity will affect the thermohaline pump that drives the North Atlantic drift, potentially stopping the Gulf Stream and reducing Europe to an icy wilderness. But it's not all bad news - the reduced ice cover will open new areas for gas and oil extraction!

Meanwhile, at the other end of the planet, Nature reports that the respected British Antarctic Survey has shown that loss of sea ice has causedAntarctic Krill populations to crash; this is the probable cause of crashing populations of various species, including the Gentoo penguin. (BAS press release here.) Sceptical readers may be interested to note that the US government now accepts that human CO2 emissions are causing climate change.

1. Qatar 42.96 per 1000 people
2. United Arab Emirates 29.10 per 1000 people
3. Kuwait 26.80 per 1000 people
4. Bahrain 20.65 per 1000 people
5. United States 19.84 per 1000 people
6. Luxembourg 18.54 per 1000 people
7. Australia 16.84 per 1000 people
8. Trinidad and Tobago 16.38 per 1000 people
9. Canada 16.18 per 1000 people
10.Singapore 13.26 per 1000 people
...
79.China 2.69 per 1000 people
.India 0.96 per 1000 people

The United Nations Population Fund (link)

Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (link)

United Nations Children's Fund aka UNICEF (link)

UN's work on women's rights (link)

UN Commission on Sustainable Development (link)

United Nations Environment Programme (link)

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (link)

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (link)

One would HOPE that
that posters have a vague familiarity with the UN before launching such a broadside.

.. bear in mind one thing: cost. Obviously any innovative solution that is ecologically sound is good and all, but the worry is that the uptake in 3rd world countries would be slow.

The new fridge might be more reliable and does not pollute, but the old technology has an army of technicians who can service it, and I believe countries like China are still allowed to produce CFC coolants. In fact, when countries agreed to phase out CFC, China's phase-out was based on its production several years in the future, and as a result its production actually jump in the subsequent years as manufacturers took advantage of the loophole.

More information here

CFCs and their replacements, HCFCs and HFCs, are all tremendously potent greenhouse gases. They have global warming potentials several thousand times that of carbon dioxide. The ozone problem is pretty much solved because global CFC production has dropped to near zero following the implementation of international treaties to protect the ozone layer. However, the global warming potential of HFC and HCFC replacements is worthy of concern.

Global warming is caused by the sun.

Just as it is true that global warming is caused by the sun, so my body generates most of the heat that keeps me warm. Nonetheless, if I wear too many sweaters, I will get too hot. Taking them off will cool me down, despite the fact that the heat is all coming from my own body. The same principle applies to the atmosphere. The earth's temperature is determined by a radiative balance. We can't change the sun, but we can change the atmosphere (our sweater), and that can cause the earth's temperature to change.

CFCs and their replacements, HCFCs and HFCs, are all tremendously potent greenhouse gases. They have global warming potentials several thousand times that of carbon dioxide. The ozone problem is pretty much solved because global CFC production has dropped to near zero following the implementation of international treaties to protect the ozone layer. However, the global warming potential of HFC and HCFC replacements is worthy of concern.

Global warming is caused by the sun.

Just as it is true that global warming is caused by the sun, so my body generates most of the heat that keeps me warm. Nonetheless, if I wear too many sweaters, I will get too hot. Taking them off will cool me down, despite the fact that the heat is all coming from my own body. The same principle applies to the atmosphere. The earth's temperature is determined by a radiative balance. We can't change the sun, but we can change the atmosphere (our sweater), and that can cause the earth's temperature to change.

CFCs and their replacements, HCFCs and HFCs, are all tremendously potent greenhouse gases. They have global warming potentials several thousand times that of carbon dioxide. The ozone problem is pretty much solved because global CFC production has dropped to near zero following the implementation of international treaties to protect the ozone layer. However, the global warming potential of HFC and HCFC replacements is worthy of concern.

Global warming is caused by the sun.

Just as it is true that global warming is caused by the sun, so my body generates most of the heat that keeps me warm. Nonetheless, if I wear too many sweaters, I will get too hot. Taking them off will cool me down, despite the fact that the heat is all coming from my own body. The same principle applies to the atmosphere. The earth's temperature is determined by a radiative balance. We can't change the sun, but we can change the atmosphere (our sweater), and that can cause the earth's temperature to change.

According to this article, "Components of the atmosphere, like ozone and water, are changing in different levels of the atmosphere." According to Martinez-Frias, these changes are BAD

However, did you know that the change taking place is not what you thought??? The ozone hole is actually getting SMALLER!!!

So we hear for 10-20 years that we are ruining the environment, damaging the ozone layer, and that this damage is irreparable (OK, so it takes a long time...but I don't want to wait 50 years). However, come to find out that it is reparable. I'm going back to using AquaNet!

But that's not enough for those environmentalists out there...they need to have something to whine about. Since they can't complain that the ozone is getting bigger, they'll say that "changes" (they won't specify for the better or for the worse) are causing the "sky to fall!"

The only thing that this teaches me is to never trust an evironmentalist. Not only was the "irreparable" ozone hole, in fact, reparable, it is BAD to fix it...it causes ice to fall out of the sky.

Now, I don't know much about weather or the environment, and I don't doubt that changes in the environment are causing some weird things to happen, but I do know that some really freaky stuff has happened in the past, and will probably continue to happen in the future.

Just stop complaining about it!!! :)

Where did you found this penis bird ?
They are thought to be extinct !
Please report all sightings of wild, alive penis birds to the UNEP.

"Anybody bashing the U.S. for not adopting the ludicrous Kyoto accords had better be from Bulgaria. If you're from anywhere else, answer this: If Kyoto is such a good idea, why hasn't your country adopted it? "

However several rather frightening changes have been seen in the temperature and saltiness (haline) of various important currents off the northern coast of Scandanavia . One apocalyptic scenario is indeed for the Gulf Stream to shutdown, which would ****up western Europe nicely.

However this is a *local* effect in the context of the global climate. The whole system is *extremely* complex (chaotic, even) and hard to model or predict. Broad, long-period predictions are easier to make than short term ones - we can model nice equilibrium states, but it's highly likely that in the short term (a few hundred years) that the entire planet will see wild fluctuations in precipitation, temperature, sea levels, yadda yadda.

Ob links:

• UN IPCC Third Assessment Report: Summary (PDF) This is especially sobering reading; contributed to by ~1000 leading world authorities on the science)
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change main site
• GEO-2000 report
• Worldwatch
• EPA Global warming site
• New Scientist special report

Note to the inevitable sceptics: if you accept (say) evolution, Relativity, Quantum mechanics (random eexamples) as being very very very likely to be true, then at least read the damn docs, look at the scientists who are putting their reps on the line on this, and consider whether it's more likely that we *are* affecting the global climate in unpredictable ways, or that vested interests are funding astroturf movements to try to convince American voters that it's all a commie plot...

--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles

You do not know what you are talking about. Climate change due to human activities absolutely HAS been proven, for any reasonable standard of 'proof'.

Some random links. Yes I know these aren't authoratitive primary sources but you can't deep link into the `Nature' site :(
BBC News
BBC News
paper in `Science'
Crowley in `Science'
(UN) IPCC
more U.N.
NASA
NASA
NASA
Nature
BBC News
New Scientist's excellent overview, ideal for clueless know-nothing^W^W getting a basic grounding in the major issues

Next time, try to avoid talking nonsense on a subject you know nothing about.
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If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles

Why climate change ? Woo, big question; there's lots of evidence, and various contrarian theories (eg: observed temperature change is due to solar oputput variations) have been knocked down one by ne. Latest doom-watch for us Euro-weenies : tghe Gulf Stream (well the upstream end of it, off Greenland) is being severely disrupted. Shut down the gulf stream and suddenly central/southern Europe regains the climate of other areas on our latitude: Siberia, northern Canada ....

There's too much to give precise URLs, but for starters search these for 'climate change' :

• BBC
• New Scientist
• Nature,
• Science,
• IPCC
• UN Environmental Program
• hell, even CNN ...