14
Commentary
November 5, 2013
‘Concentrations of carbon
dioxide has increased by
40 percent since preindustrial times.’
I usually write a column on global
warming during the height of summer
heat – it’s harder for people to deny
global warming when they’re sweating. But the highly authoritative United
Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent report,
“Climate Change 2013: The Physical
Science Basis,” (http://www.ipcc.ch) has
important warnings for us to seriously
consider now.
The report, authored by 259 scientists
and editors from 39 countries, declares,
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many observed changes are unprecedented over
decades to millennia. The atmosphere
and ocean have warmed, amounts of
snow and ice have diminished, sea level
has risen, and concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased.”
According to the report, atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased
to levels unprecedented over the last
800,000 years. Concentrations of the
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide has
increased by 40 percent since preindustrial times, due primarily to fossil
fuel emissions.
As a result, the earth is warming,
causing major ice melts. During the last
two decades Greenland and Antarctic
ice sheets have continued to lose mass,
and glaciers throughout the world are
shrinking. Arctic sea ice in the Northern
T
he Valley Catholic
Making a Difference
By Tony Magliano
Earth dangerously warming – and we are causing it
Hemisphere continues to decrease.
These verifiable scientific facts are
already starting to pose dangerous
conditions for some coastal areas. The
British newspaper, “The Guardian,”
features a series on climate change already underway. Headlined “America’s
first climate refugees,” the series notes
the plight of Newtok – a native Alaskan
coastal village.
“With climate change occurring rapidly in the far north, where temperatures
are warming faster than the global average,” many villages like Newtok could
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