Post by redwolf on Oct 9, 2007 12:57:50 GMT -6
Some sobering news on climate change:
Climate change puts human survival at risk
The U.N.'s most comprehensive study ever on the environment includes an urgent call for global action.
By Kim Chipman, Bloomberg News
Climate change, species extinctions and a growing human population living beyond its environmental means are putting the global economy and even the survival of mankind at risk, according to a new U.N. study.
Other problems, driven by increasing human population and a widening wealth gap, include declining fish stocks, loss of fertile land and dwindling amounts of fresh water, the 540-page report said. It also warns that environmental damage may pass "points of no return."
Human activity has reached an unsustainable level, outstripping available resources, the report said.
"The bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme.
U.N. officials said the report isn't intended to portray merely a grim scenario, it's also an "urgent call for action." On climate change, the study says the need to combat increasing temperatures and sea levels is a "global priority" requiring "large" reductions in greenhouse gases by mid-century.
Most comprehensive study
While the report -- prepared by about 390 scientists worldwide and reviewed by 1,000 others -- says there's an urgent need for political leadership on climate change, it contends that so far there is a "remarkable lack of urgency" and a "woefully inadequate" global response.
It also says "several highly polluting countries" have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, a global treaty for cutting global warming pollution.
The United States, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has declined to join the accord, arguing it would harm the economy. President Bush also has said that developing countries such as China and India that are exempt from making cuts under the treaty should be required to do so.
The United Nations says the study is its most comprehensive ever on the environment. It comes 20 years after a commission headed by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland published "Our Common Future," a landmark report calling for sustainable development.
In related news: Almost a third of all apes, monkeys and other primates are in danger of extinction because of rampant habitat destruction, commercial sale of their meat and the trade in illegal wildlife, a report released today said.
Of the world's 394 primate species, 114 are classified as threatened with extinction by the World Conservation Union.
The report by Conservation International and the International Primatological Society in Hainan, China, focuses on the plight of the 25 most endangered primates, including China's Hainan gibbon, of which only 17 remain.
Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, said, "You could fit all the surviving members of the 25 species in a single football stadium; that's how few of them remain on Earth today."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
www.startribune.com/484/story/1509120.html
Climate change puts human survival at risk
The U.N.'s most comprehensive study ever on the environment includes an urgent call for global action.
By Kim Chipman, Bloomberg News
Climate change, species extinctions and a growing human population living beyond its environmental means are putting the global economy and even the survival of mankind at risk, according to a new U.N. study.
Other problems, driven by increasing human population and a widening wealth gap, include declining fish stocks, loss of fertile land and dwindling amounts of fresh water, the 540-page report said. It also warns that environmental damage may pass "points of no return."
Human activity has reached an unsustainable level, outstripping available resources, the report said.
"The bill we hand on to our children may prove impossible to pay," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme.
U.N. officials said the report isn't intended to portray merely a grim scenario, it's also an "urgent call for action." On climate change, the study says the need to combat increasing temperatures and sea levels is a "global priority" requiring "large" reductions in greenhouse gases by mid-century.
Most comprehensive study
While the report -- prepared by about 390 scientists worldwide and reviewed by 1,000 others -- says there's an urgent need for political leadership on climate change, it contends that so far there is a "remarkable lack of urgency" and a "woefully inadequate" global response.
It also says "several highly polluting countries" have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, a global treaty for cutting global warming pollution.
The United States, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, has declined to join the accord, arguing it would harm the economy. President Bush also has said that developing countries such as China and India that are exempt from making cuts under the treaty should be required to do so.
The United Nations says the study is its most comprehensive ever on the environment. It comes 20 years after a commission headed by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland published "Our Common Future," a landmark report calling for sustainable development.
In related news: Almost a third of all apes, monkeys and other primates are in danger of extinction because of rampant habitat destruction, commercial sale of their meat and the trade in illegal wildlife, a report released today said.
Of the world's 394 primate species, 114 are classified as threatened with extinction by the World Conservation Union.
The report by Conservation International and the International Primatological Society in Hainan, China, focuses on the plight of the 25 most endangered primates, including China's Hainan gibbon, of which only 17 remain.
Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, said, "You could fit all the surviving members of the 25 species in a single football stadium; that's how few of them remain on Earth today."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
www.startribune.com/484/story/1509120.html