Vatican -Appointed Science Panel Warns of Climate Change

The problem is you have people like John who believe the earth is cooling (yes, cooling. lol), and S&L who claim to be agnostic yet post things that show they clearly dont believe
that climate change is happening. With so many heads in the sand in this country we are unfortunately not too likely to take serious action until the problems are staring us in the face.

Vatican-appointed panel warns of climate change
(AP) – 20 hours ago
VATICAN CITY (AP) — A Vatican-appointed panel of scientists has reported what climate change experts have been warning for years: the Earth is getting warmer, glaciers are melting, and urgent measures are necessary to stem the damage.
The scientists called for urgent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and reductions in methane and other pollutants that warm the air, and for improved observation of mountain glaciers to better track their changes.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, a Vatican advisory panel, hosted a conference last month on the causes and consequences of retreating mountain glaciers. Its final report, dated May 5 and signed by independent glaciologists, climate scientists, meteorologists and chemists, was posted on the Vatican website Tuesday.
"We appeal to all nations to develop and implement, without delay, effective and fair policies to reduce the causes and impacts of climate change on communities and ecosystems, including mountain glaciers and their watersheds, aware that we all live in the same home," the report said.
"We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us."
The Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the document was "important" but is not a piece of the church's key teachings and merely reflects the conclusions of the independent scientists involved.
That said, he noted that it was a "significant scientific contribution" to the concerns that Pope Benedict XVI has voiced in both his encyclicals and public statements.
Benedict has been dubbed the "green pope" for his environmental concerns: In 2008, the Vatican installed photovoltaic cells on the roof of its main auditorium. A year later it installed a solar cooling unit for its main cafeteria. The Vatican has also joined a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its CO2 emissions.
Brenda Ekwurzel, the assistant director of climate research and analysis at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Cambridge, Massachusettss-based think tank, said the report was a "straightforward recap of major known findings about glaciers," that was penned by high-caliber scientists. She highlighted one significant point in the report's title and throughout; it refers to the new geologic "era" of human modification of the world, known as "Anthropocene."
"Perhaps the reality that the Vatican recognizes this fact, as the report indicates, is worth mentioning to those who remain unconvinced of human-induced climate change," Ekwurzel said in an email.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...7;?via=siderec

Drum roll, please. All cards are on the table! The ExxonMobil climate 'beast deck' has been disclosed! The oil behemouth, currently braced for a fight on Capitol Hill over oil company tax breaks, was recently exposed for funding nine of the top internationally renowned authors of climate change denial literature. The charges emerged in a report conducted by the European organization The Carbon Brief.

The Climate Brief is headed by Tom Brookes, director of the Energy Strategy Centre, which is funded by the non-profit European Climate Foundation.

The analysis, which reveals that climate skeptics are a small, close network of individuals linked primarily by the oil industry funding, discounts assertions of climate denial network that their opinions are based on significant scientific concensus on the causes of climate change.

According to The Carbon Brief, the climate skeptic organization The Global Warming Policy Foundation amassed over 900 papers, primarily funded by the oil industry, to promote distrust of scientific findings which project dramatic irrevocable socio-economic and environmental devastation if anthropogenic global warming (AGW) remains unchecked.

An example of GWPF policy is reflected in a recent posting Breakthrough: New Coupled Climate Model Results.


NoCarbonTax, creators of the above model, claims to have "spared no expense, time and supercomputer power to create a completely new Coupled Climate Change model" and offers to release their data when the University of East Anglica Climate Research Unit releases theirs. (The theft of data and emails from CRU launched ClimateGate just prior to the December 2009 UNFCCC COP15 Meeting In Copenhagen.)

Exxon's First Responder Climate Skeptic Team

The most prolific climate-skeptic author on the list is Sherwood B. Idso, president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, an ExxonMobil-funded think-tank. Idso's claim to the throne of CD literature comes from his authoring -- or co-authoring -- of 67 of the 938 papers analyzed. (See CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic's view of potential climate change.

The Cato Institute's Patrick J. Michaels is heir apparent, with 28 CD papers under his belt. Michaels makes no attempt to fudge the fact that 40% of his funding comes from the oil industry.