American Meteorological Society strengthens global warming position

You've got a choice, global warming deniers: scurry further into the shadows of unreality, or come out into the sun of truth.

I recommend the latter, because there's less and less room to hide. The previously almost deserted corridors of minority scientific opinion (97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming) are steadily becoming even less populated.

Now the American Meteorological Society has put more pressure on global warming deniers, strengthening considerably its previous position statement on the subject.

Here's excerpts from the August 2012 Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society:

The following is an AMS Information Statement intended to provide a trustworthy, objective, and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large.

...This statement provides a brief overview of how and why global climate has changed over the past century and will continue to change in the future. It is based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature and is consistent with the vast weight of current scientific understanding as expressed in assessments and reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. 

...There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities. This scientific finding is based on a large and persuasive body of research.

The observed warming will be irreversible for many years into the future, and even larger temperature increases will occur as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere. Avoiding this future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions. The ongoing warming will increase risks and stresses to human societies, economies, ecosystems, and wildlife through the 21st century and beyond, making it imperative that society respond to a changing climate.

A Climate Progress post has additional excerpts from the updated position statement, adding:

Only anti-science deniers — pure rejectionists of rational thinking — can continue to encourage inaction in the face of this overwhelming body of evidence.

Unfortunately, anti-science deniers constitute the majority of today's Republican Party leadership. The Party's platform comes out strongly against efforts to reduce carbon pollution and protect American's against the dangers of continued global warming.

The Republican platform slated for approval at the party’s convention includes expanded offshore oil-and-gas development, opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling rigs and thwarting Environmental Protection Agency climate change regulations.

...Romney has also called for stripping EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and other sources. 

The platform, AP reports, bashes carbon regulations “that will harm the nation's economy and threaten millions of jobs over the next quarter-century.” 

EPA has proposed first-time national carbon emissions standards for new coal-fired power plants, effectively barring new facilities unless they can trap and store carbon emissions, a technology that hasn’t been commercialized.

But carbon rules for existing plants are on a much slower track at EPA.

The fresh GOP push to nix EPA’s authority to regulate carbon arrives as a major scientific organization is sounding fresh alarms about human-induced global warming.

“There is unequivocal evidence that Earth’s lower atmosphere, ocean, and land surface are warming; sea level is rising; and snow cover, mountain glaciers, and Arctic sea ice are shrinking. The dominant cause of the warming since the 1950s is human activities,” the American Meteorological Society said as part of a lengthy statement on climate change Monday. 

Another reason to vote for Obama and other Dems come November. Reality is too important to waste by electing truth-denying Republicans.

Comments

[Willie R]

"Avoiding this future warming will REQUIRE a large and rapid reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions."

With a human population of an estimated 7 billion on the planet already, and, inevitably, even more billions on the way, fulfilling this requirement has very little chance of happening.

I suggest not voting for anyone. It works for me.....

[tucson]

If you shut down the oil/energy industry you effectively shut down the economy and any chance of economic recovery and paying down the debt/deficit. So then what? The country goes belly up. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place. People are not going to give up buying and making stuff. The only solution is to kill off about 5-6 billion people who depend on carbon emission produced stuff to sustain their lives and a few billion farting (a greenhouse gas) animals as well. How about a super-virus? An asteroid the size of Nantuckett should do the mass extinction trick a la the dinosaurs. Sorry, the future is grim. Not even the great Obama can save us.