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Climate change experts warned this week that the phenomenon is occurring at a faster rate than the worst-case scenario envisaged by scientists just six years ago.
Tim Flannery, named the 2007 Australian of the Year for his work in alerting the public to the dangers of global warming, said the issue was the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century.
Flannery said predictions in a 2001 UN report, warning the atmosphere was likely to warm by 1.4 to 5.8°C from 1990 to 2100 now appeared conservative.
"In the six years since then, we've collected enough data to (check) whether those projections are valid or not," he said. "It turns out they're not valid, but in the most horrible way – because for the key performance indicators about climate, change is occurring far in advance of the worst-case scenario."
Here, we bring you a timeline on global warming and climate change:
1827
• French scientist Jean-Baptiste Fourier is the first to consider the greenhouse effect: the phenomenon whereby atmospheric gases trap solar energy, increasing Earth's surface temperature, rather than let the heat radiate back into space.
1896
• Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius blames the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) for producing carbon dioxide (CO2).
1958
• U.S. scientist Charles David Keeling detects a yearly rise in atmospheric CO2.
1979
• A landmark report by U.S. National Academy of Sciences pins the greenhouse effect to global warming and warns "a wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late."
1988
• U.N. sets up a scientific authority to vet the evidence on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
1990
• First IPCC report says levels of man-made greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere and predicts these will cause global warming.
1992
• Creation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Rio Summit, which also calls for voluntary cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
1997
• UNFCCC countries sign the Kyoto Protocol. Under its first commitment period, industrialised countries are required to reduce emissions of six key greenhouse gases to 5.2 per cent below their 1990 levels by the end of 2012. Fleshing out its complex and legally binding rulebook is left to further negotiations.
2000
• 1990s are named as the hottest decade on record.
2001
• IPCC's third report declares the evidence for man-made global warming to be incontrovertible although the effects on the climate are hard to pin down.
• The United States, the biggest single greenhouse-gas polluter, abandons the Kyoto Protocol. President George W. Bush questions scientific consensus on global warming, says the treaty is too expensive for the U.S. economy and unfair as big developing countries escape binding emissions pledges.
• Kyoto signatories minus the U.S. agree on the treaty's rulebook, opening the way to ratification process.
2004
• The International Energy Agency (IEA) says China is now the world's second biggest carbon emitter, due to rising use of fossil fuels.
2005
• Kyoto Protocol takes effect on February 16.
• Global warming takes centre stage at G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, where leaders acknowledge climate change to be "a serious and long-term challenge."
• Awareness, and concern, of global warming surges in U.S. after an exceptional season for tropical storms, punctuated by Hurricane Katrina.
2006
• Former U.S. vice president Al Gore's docu-movie "An Inconvenient Truth" drives global warming up the U.S. political agenda.
• California unveils plans for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and files lawsuits against six vehicle manufacturers for their contribution to global warming.
• Report by former World Bank economist Sir Nicholas Stern says global warming will cost up to 20 per cent of worldwide gross domestic product if nothing is done.
2007
• The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hand of the Doomsday clock forward by two minutes, making it five minutes to midnight, citing global warming and nuclear proliferation.
• IPCC's fourth assessment says glacial shrinkage, ice loss and permafrost retreat are signs that climate change is already underway. Predicts higher risk of drought, floods and more powerful storms this century, increasing the probability of hunger, homelessness and water-borne disease. Forecasts likely warming of 1.8 to 4.0°C and raised sea levels of 18 to 59 cm by 2100.
• September: Meetings are held at the UN in New York and among major emitters in Washington, ahead of talks in December on the issue of deepening cuts after 2012, when the first commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Global warming time line
What a load of nonsense. A selective dip into the scares on global warming which totally ignores the global cooling scares of the 60's and 70's and pays no attention at all to earlier centuries when Greenland was an agricultural economy. It also ignores the Little Ice Age when Europe was in the grip of intense cold, famine and pestilence. There is evidence of this in the Antarctic ice core records as well, hence it was a global event, from which we are currently recovering.
As with many others of his ilk, Flannery is doing very nicely thank you from this flummery.
Real problems with Global Warming
If you go back far enough, up to 500 million years, the CO2 concentration was up to 12 times higher, and this variously corresponded to a time when life prospered.
The only explanation of this I have received concerns the accepted fact that the sun is getting hotter, and what was tolerable then isn't tolerable now. I have seen nothing quantitative on this ,however.
There is one quantitative conclusion you can come to, however;
If you do assume that these past CO2 levels approached the maximum allowable, you come up with the fact that in less than a few million years, no CO2 at all is allowable! If you assume that we are approaching the max allowable for the first time, then the no CO2 point is even sooner.
Dick Heintz
h3432468@yahoo.com
So, douse the fire with gasline, then?
Mr. Heintz, Your logic is as full of holes as the Artic ice cap these days. First of all, you don't put out fires with benzene. If sunlight, for some natural reason, is intensifying on earth, that's all the more reason to take immediate steps to stop exacerbating by adding huge amounts of CO2 ourselves.
Secondly, we have good evidence that what may have been okay for life on earth half a billion years ago, is not going to be beneficial to humankind now covering the planet. Humans didn't even exist then, must less an interdependent civilization organized around present climate conditions. Sure, eventually, humans might survive, adapt even thrive...but you can be sure the price will be very, very high indeed, in life and treasure. Billions of people will be affected adversely. If the sun's getting hotter, then we have an emergency. We need to curb our own CO2, just like we've done with Ozone, and what's more, take steps to start adjusting now... If you think you're coming down with bronchitis, the last thing you want to do would be to take up smoking.
Thirdly, virtually all of what we need to do to alleviate global heating has beneficial economic, environmental and public health effects. It involves higher efficiencies of fuel consumption and eventually cheaper power alternatives than $80-a-barrel petroleum, or polluting coal. Alternative energy, efficiency and conservation-based growth will give developing countries a faster, cleaner track to affluence that is sustainable for themselves and the rest of us.
Lastly, it's not an either-or thing. It's not about blame. We need to do all this anyway, because sooner or later we run too low on oil to make this present economy sustainable. If something that threatens civilization, as we know it comes from nature, rather than from human kind -- say earthquakes or plagues instead of war -- then you still gotta handle things. It's called survival of the fittest. Live will survive and thrive global warming -- but maybe not humanity, at least civilized humanity... Get real folks.
Be sure to read the final paragraph
I think you should go back and read my statement more carefully. I wasn’t claiming that the increase in the brightness of the sun was a solution to global warming. I was searching for an explanation as to why life prospered 500 million years ago when the CO2 level was 5000 ppm, and the claim that life can’t prosper today if the level rises much above 400 ppm.
A professor of physics at the local university gave me the explanation that the increase on the brightness of the sun would explain this. When I investigated this and presented him with my conclusions, he had no rejoinder and has avoided me ever since. The history of CO2 levels I obtained from p 83 of the book “Oxygen”, by Nick Lane, Oxford Press. The 3% increase in the sun’s brightness can be derived from data on p 201 of the book “A Matter of Degrees” by Gino Segre, Viking Press.
I’d certainly like to see the “good evidence” you have that the human race wouldn’t prosper under the same conditions where most of the species extant today evolved and flourished. Humans are the most adaptable of all animals to new conditions. We now inhabit virtually every corner of the globe; no other animal comes even close. The only really significant disruption to our civilization that I can come up with is that rising ocean levels will cause the coastline to recede by about a mile. Conversely, the land area in Canada and Siberia that will be converted to a temperate climate is at least one thousand times greater! Any disruption I can imagine pales in comparison to that visited on the human race by war, pestilence, corruption and greed.
I only bring these matters up because, if we continue to conjure up the specter of global warming being a disaster, and it proves not to be, then the entirely legitimate concern we both have about the need for energy conservation will be discredited at the same time.
Dick Heintz
luxury life
now we should quit the luxury life like a.c., refrigerator, car, all cooling items release co2.
Global warming and action
It is easy, as harbinger does, to debunk the majority findings of scientists, and tempting when there is a penalty such as a reduced standard of living. We lucky ones can relax and enjoy life, and not worry about the future for our grandchildren and others. But I am prepared to moderate my use of energy and water to help contain evident adverse changes. I also think that there are worse threats like over-population, exhaustion of resources, and pollution.
However it it seems clear that the globe is warming and that this is affecting many people now because the population has increased greatly. I am prepared to live modestly without complaining about gaps in scientific knowledge as long as unbiased efforts are continuing.
Reply
Agree totally. Population is the most important issue. Our supply and use of resources depend on the management of our numbers as much as we manage other less destructive species.
What a god idea then who is
What a god idea then who is going to volunteer to leave this planet?
Population
Try investing in a few condoms. The rubber you use will be less than the footprint of the person you produce.
Population
It is not about moving people off the planet. 40 Million each year do that themselves, it is about not letting so many new ones on so quickly. We either manage our change or let Mother Nature do it for us. In ten years time the new history books will speak of the terrible decisions made in 2007.