from: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,492566,00.html

Top scientists isolate Bush by backing Kyoto

Tim Radford, science editor Friday May 18, 2001 The Guardian

In a veiled rebuke to George Bush, the US president, 17 of the world's most conservative science bodies have called on politicians to honour the Kyoto agreement and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The national academies of Britain and 16 other nations - but not the National Academy of Sciences in the US - today publish a joint statement in the US journal, Science, on action to avert climate change. The statement says that "it is at least 90% certain" that temperatures will continue to rise by 5.8C in the next century.

President Bush caused worldwide concern in March when he made clear that the US would not fall in with an international agreement hammered out in Kyoto, Japan, to begin cutting greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels. This was because, he said, there was still scientific disagreement over the issue.

There was immediate protest from politicians and environmental campaigners. The academies of science, however, took rather longer to react. When they did their verdict was clear. "Doubts have been expressed recently about the need to mitigaterisks posed by global climate change," they said. "We do not consider such doubts justified."

The statement is backed by the academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, Turkey. The Royal Society in Britain also backs the statement. These academies represent the elite within scientific communities.

The view of many officials of the Royal Society was that because President Bush had asked the National Academy to assess the risk of climate change, the rest of the US science elite would come to much the same conclusion.

The statement urges a widespread effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to ratify the Kyoto protocol as a first step to much more substantial cuts in decades to come. It also urges nationals to accept the conclusions of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC), which is convinced that human activity is already affecting global climate, and predicts dramatic warming.

Sir Robert May, president of the Royal Society and until recently, the government's chief scientific adviser, said: "Global climate change is a worrying reality and nobody can afford to delay action in tackling it. Some people have unjustifiably sought to undermine the work of the IPCC, but governments should be left in no doubt that it offers the best source of expertise on climate change. It has bought together scientists from all over the world, and their deliberations transcend national boundaries and the interests of individual countries."

The 10 hottest years since global records began have all occurred in the past two decades. Yesterday, Dutch researchers confirmed that climate change was affecting migratory birds like the pied flycatcher. US scientists last month linked the worldwide decline of frogs, toads and salamanders, to global warming.

In February, an American team predicted that the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and in the high Andes of Peru, would disappear within 10 to 20 years. Late last year, scientists at the Met office in Britain warned of temperatures never before experienced in human history, matched only by those in the dinosaur era.

"The developed countries have been responsible for more than two thirds of the emissions over the past 200 years," said Sir Robert, "it is morally right they should lead the way to meeting human energy needs while preserving environmental and natural resources for future generations."

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), May 19, 2001

Answers

Where are all these countries that have ratified this treaty??!!! And how many Senators (democrat or repub) voted to even bring it to the floor for debate??!! Oh yeah, frigging pansies are hiding behind their momma's dresses and blaming it all on Bush - but they are happy as anything that he did what he did as it provides a handy excuse for everyone all around.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), May 20, 2001.

LMAO!!

Hey Ra, you sound like a friggin hysterical crybaby Rush Limbaugh clone, whining because your hero is showing the world what an idiot he is! Keep on sucking his little weenie, he loves it!

BWAAAAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

-- conservatives are worthless shits (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), May 20, 2001.