that this piece is even printed in Kansas ...is a small step forward
for mankind.....

That some evangelicals are upset that Republicans are not being good
caretakers to the earth..is also encouraging....

"Britain is warning: Americans, itÂ’s time to be afraid."

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/15889676.htm

The warning on warming
Britain forecasts the devastating worldwide costs of unchecked climate
change.
Star News Services

Blair

LONDON | Britain is warning: Americans, itÂ’s time to be afraid.

Higher sea levels, heavier floods and more intense droughts could turn
200 million people worldwide into refugees by mid-century unless
urgent action is taken to stem global warming, a British report said
Monday.

By issuing a sweeping account of the costs of unchecked climate
change, Britain raised the stakes in its ecological dispute with the
United States and China.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, urging for “bold and decisive action” to
cut carbon emissions around the globe, faces not only a skeptical Bush
administration but also an uncertain American public.

Only 41 percent of Americans polled last summer by the
Washington-based Pew Research Center accepted the prevailing
scientific view that climate change is due primarily to human
activities, such as burning fossil fuels in cars, trucks and
factories.

The rest of the 1,501 adults in the survey either said thereÂ’s no
solid evidence that the Earth is warming, or that if there is, the
extra heat is the result of natural climate patterns, such as
fluctuations in the sunÂ’s radiation.

Most scientists believe otherwise, and the British report echoed those
fears.

The 700-page report warns that the planet faces a calamity on the
scale of the world wars and the Great Depression if countries do not
act to cut emissions thought to be producing a greenhouse effect.

In a clear indication of BlairÂ’s growing dissatisfaction with U.S.
environmental policy, the British government hired former Vice
President Al Gore — President Bush’s opponent in the 2000 election —
to advise it on climate change.

The report by Sir Nicholas Stern, a senior government economist,
“estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of
climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5 percent of
global GDP each year, now and forever.

“If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account,” he
said, “it could mean as much as 20 percent of GDP or more.”

Stern said acting now to cut greenhouse gas emissions would cost about
1 percent of global GDP each year.

“The benefits of strong, early action considerably outweigh the
costs,” he said. “We can grow and be green.”

British officials emphasized that blocking global warming can only
succeed with the cooperation of other major countries.

Bush kept the United States — the world’s biggest emitter of carbon
dioxide and other gases blamed for climate change — out of the Kyoto
international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, saying the pact would
harm the U.S. economy.

Kristen A. Hellmer, deputy director for communications at the White
House Council on Environmental Quality, said Bush “has long recognized
that climate change is a serious issue, and he has committed the U.S.
to advancing and investing in the new technologies to help address
this problem.”

The United States, she said, “is well on track to meet the president’s
goal to reduce greenhouse gas intensity of our economy 18 percent by
2012.”

Asked about the British hiring Gore, Hellmer said: “They can hire
whoever they want.”

The former vice president earlier this month got a rousing reception
in Belgium, which he visited to promote “An Inconvenient Truth,” his
film on global warming. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt soon proposed a
package of “environmentally friendly” measures that Belgians dubbed
“the Gore tax.”

Similar resolve could come from U.S. leaders if more Americans
pressure them to take action, said Katie Mandes, communications
director at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Va.

“The issue in Europe has a much greater degree of urgency than it has
for people in the U.S.,” she said. “The skeptics here have been very
effective in their calls to keep the status quo.”

Much of the push to address U.S. emissions has come not from the
voting public but from scientists and some corporations that already
have cut emissions in other countries to avoid penalties, said Mandes.

Blair signed an agreement this year with California Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger to develop technologies to combat the problem.

The measure imposed the first emissions cap in the United States on
utilities, refineries and manufacturers.

The Stern report praised states such as California for developing
their own objectives and policy frameworks in the face of limited
federal action.

But no matter what Britain, the United States and Japan do, the battle
will be decided in such fast-industrializing giants as China and
India.

Blair: “Close down all, all, of Britain’s emissions and in less than
two years just the growth in ChinaÂ’s emissions would wipe out the
difference.”

The Stern report said at current trends, average global temperatures
will rise by 3.6 to 5.4 degrees within the next 50 years or so, and
the Earth will experience several degrees more of warming if emissions
continue to grow.

Many major cities could be at risk of flooding from coastal surges,
including New York, Miami, London, Tokyo and Buenos Aires, the study
said. Developing countries would face crop and drinking water
shortages, leading to more deaths from malnutrition.

The report acknowledged its predictions regarding global gross
domestic product were problematic. Researchers had to rely on sparse
observational data about high temperatures and developing nations, and
had to place monetary values on human health, “which is conceptually,
ethically and empirically very difficult.”

Britain is one of only a few industrialized nations whose greenhouse
gas emissions have fallen in the last 15 years, according to the
United Nations: GermanyÂ’s emissions dropped 17 percent between 1990
and 2004, BritainÂ’s by 14 percent, but FranceÂ’s, less than 1 percent.

Overall, there was a 2.4 percent rise in emissions by 41
industrialized nations from 2000 to 2004, mostly gas from former
Soviet-bloc countries, which rose by 4.1 percent.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------