permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/environment_climate_scientists_dc;_ylt=AlEyoXJ4biTJOlX09y.YV65hr7sF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl>

Global warming demands urgent solutions: scientists

By Jeremy Lovell Mon Jan 30, 5:41 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - The world must halt greenhouse gas emissions and reverse them within two decades or watch the planet 
spiraling toward destruction, scientists said on Monday.
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Saying that evidence of catastrophic global warming from burning fossil fuels was now incontrovertible, the experts from 
oceanographers to economists, climatologists and politicians stressed that inaction was unacceptable.

"Climate change is worse than was previously thought and we need to act now," Henry Derwent, special climate change 
adviser to British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, said at the launch of a book of scientific papers on the global 
climate crisis.

Researcher Rachel Warren from the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, who contributed to the book "Avoiding 
Dangerous Climate Change," said carbon dioxide emissions had to peak no later than 2025, and painted a picture of 
rapidly approaching catastrophe.

Global average temperatures were already 0.6 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and a rise of just 0.4C more would see 
coral reefs wiped out, flooding in the Himalayas and millions more people facing hunger, she said.

A rise of 3C -- just half of what scientists have warned is possible this century -- would see 400 million people going 
hungry, entire species being wiped out and killer diseases such as dengue fever reaching pandemic proportions.

"To prevent all of this needs global emissions to peak in 2025 and then come down 
by 2.6 percent a year," Warren said.

"But even then we would probably face a rise of 2 degrees because of the delay built into the climate system. So we have 
to start to plan to adapt," she added.

Already the effects of the change are becoming visible, with more extreme weather events and people in coastal areas put 
at risk from rising sea levels due to melting ice caps.

The first phase of the global
Kyoto protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions runs until 2012, and negotiations have only just started on finding a 
way of taking it beyond that.

The United States, the world's biggest polluter, has rejected both the protocol in its current form and any suggestion 
of expanding or extending it.

Instead it has set up with Australia, India, China, Japan and
South Korea the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development.