Overwhelming evidence indicates that global warming is man-made by UNEP / American Union of Climate Scientists 4:07am 6th Feb, 2010   Feb 2010    The great weight of science supports the findings in a landmark 2007 report from a United Nations-backed panel of experts that global warming is man-made, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said today.    Defending the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) against criticism UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said that the panel has drawn upon the expertise of thousands of the best scientific minds for some 22 years.    The “time has really come for a reality check,” said Mr. Steiner, noting that “the overwhelming evidence now indicates that greenhouse-gas emissions need to peak within the next decade if we are to have any reasonable chance of keeping the global rise in temperature down to manageable levels,” he said.    “Any delay may generate environmental and economic risks of a magnitude that proves impossible to handle.”    Mr. Steiner warned that even without climate change the fact remains that a global transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient future is necessary, given the world"s population is rise from 6.7 billion to 9 billion in the next 50 years.    “We need to improve management of our atmosphere, air, lands, soils, and oceans anyway,” he said. “What is needed is an urgent international response to the multiple challenges of energy security, air pollution, natural-resource management, and climate change.”    Dec 2009    Open Letter to US Congress from US Scientists on Climate Change and Recently Stolen Emails.    As U.S. scientists with substantial expertise on climate change and its impacts on natural ecosystems, our built environment and human well-being, we want to assure policy makers and the public of the integrity of the underlying scientific research and the need for urgent action to reduce heat-trapping emissions. In the last few weeks, opponents of taking action on climate change have misrepresented both the content and the significance of stolen emails to obscure public understanding of climate science and the scientific process. We would like to set the record straight.    The body of evidence that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming is overwhelming. The content of the stolen emails has no impact whatsoever on our overall understanding that human activity is driving dangerous levels of global warming. The scientific process depends on open access to methodology, data, and a rigorous peer-review process. The robust exchange of ideas in the peer-reviewed literature regarding climate science is evidence of the high degree of integrity in this process.    As the recent letter to Congress from 18 leading U.S. scientific organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society, states:    “Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. … If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced.”    These “multiple independent lines of evidence” are drawn from numerous public and private research centers all across the United States and beyond, including several independent analyses of surface temperature data. Even without including analyses from the UK research center from which the emails were stolen, the body of evidence underlying our understanding of human-caused global warming remains robust.    Evidence for climate change is incontrovertible.    Multiple, independent lines of evidence point to the fact that burning fossil fuels and destroying forests is overloading the atmosphere with carbon and rapidly changing the climate for the worse. This evidence, along with independently developed climate models from many sources, indicates that the more we reduce emissions, the lower the future risks from climate change.    The world"s leading scientific bodies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), have affirmed the evidence. In fact, the latest scientific data indicate that climate change is occurring more rapidly than the IPCC previously projected.    The findings of the USGCRP, IPCC and other scientific bodies are based on the work of thousands of scientists from hundreds of research institutions. There is overwhelming body of evidence that human activity triggering dangerous levels of global warming.    Contrarians are desperately promoting conspiracy theories. Industry-funded groups such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), oil and coal companies and their allies continue to spend millions of dollars to try to confuse the public on climate science and climate solutions. They are the real sources of disinformation and spin in the climate debate. Visit the related web page
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