Just to briefly cover some things we touched on in class:
--If you aren't sure about the opinion of this Berkeley guy teaching your class, maybe you'll take it from George W. Bush, who may not be much of a libertarian but who is certainly a big oil man and in no way a liberal or an environmentalist. In 2005 he said, "I recognize the surface of the earth is warmer and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem."
--From a powerpoint by an IPCC author: "[Here we see] changes in glaciers, indicating a global average temperature change in the 20th century consistent with the thermometers. And the corals. And the tree rings. And the boreholes. And the ice cores." Their conclusion: "Warming is unequivocal, and most of the warming of the past 50 years is very likely (90%) due to increases in greenhouse gases."
--Working Group I, the physical scientists, wrote a report that took three years from 2004-2007. The work includes contributions from 152 authors, 450 contributors, 600 expert reviewers, and compiles over 30,000 review comments. What's more, this group of people built on the accomplishments of the 2001 IPCC Working Group I's report, but 75% of the authors of the new project weren't involved with the old project. This report is the consensus of thousands of physical scientists.
I'm not a scientist, but I am no longer thinking about "What if it's true" but I'm thinking about "How much will things change" and "What do we need to take into account to adapt most effectively."
