Franklin News and Views

An interesting article summarising the latest scientific report on climate change.  From Online Opinion Ahead of talks in Copenhagen, a group of leading climate scientists has issued a new report summarising the most recent research findings from around the world and concluding that scientists have underestimated the pace and extent of global warming. The report - titled The Copenhagen Diagnosis - finds that in several key areas observed changes are outstripping the most recent projections by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and warns that “there is a very high probability of the warming exceeding 2C unless global emissions peak and start to decline rapidly” within the next decade. The report points to dramatic declines in Arctic sea ice, recent measurements that show a large net loss of ice from both Greenland and Antarctica, and the relatively rapid rise in global sea levels - 3.4 millimetres per year - as particular reasons for concern. Sea-level rise th...

Item in the Sydney Morning Herald Cold comfort: the psychology of climate denial December 2, 2009 - 4:49PM If the evidence is overwhelming that man-made climate change is already upon us and set to wreak planetary havoc, why do so many people refuse to believe it? The UN's panel of climate scientists, in a landmark report, described the proof of global warming as "unequivocal". That was two years ago, and since then hundreds of other studies have pointed to an ever-bleaker future, with a potential loss of life numbering in the tens of millions, if not more. Yet survey after survey from around world reveals deep-seated doubt among the public. A poll published in Britain on November 14, to cite but one example, found that only 41 per cent of respondents accepted as an established fact that human activity was largely responsible for current global warming. The majority said the link was not proven, that green propaganda was to blame or the world was not heating up at all. La...