UN report: world temperature rising

With the release of the latest global warming report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it looks like a disaster is on the horizon. In more than 1,000 detailed pages, reviewing all the significant scientific work of the past five years, the UN panel of international scientific experts has assessed the likelihood of calamitous environmental change due to global warming. And it doesn't look good.

In the past century, the globe warmed 0.6 degrees Celsius. The global average temperature is projected to warm 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius over the next 100 years. This rise in temperature could, according to the report, lead to the melting of the polar ice caps and the extinction of penguins and polar bears, as well as other species. Can you imagine a world without any polar bears? This melting would also lead to a drastic rise in the sea level, which would cause massive shore erosion and jeopardize the existence of some islands. The island state of Tuvalu is seeking land and money in order to relocate its entire population. "The available literature has not yet investigated climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability associated with the upper end of the projected range of warming," the report said.

Furthermore, it stated that "there has been a discernable human impact" on climate change. This work has settled the question of human-induced climate change as far as most scientists and policy makers are concerned. Even major corporations such as Ford, General Motors, and Shell have acknowledged humanity's responsibility for the problem. Debate has moved on to what to do about it, and this report underscores the importance of prompt action, as it lays out in minute detail what the last century's rise in temperature has caused and what effects we can expect in the course of the next century. The world's poorest countries will be the hardest hit by this massive temperature shift, but U.S. citizens will also suffer from effects such as erosion of coastal land, more severe storms, and the spread of diseases such as malaria. This is a tragedy compounded by injustice, for while the poorest nations will be most vulnerable to these climate changes, they are also the least responsible for the problem at hand.

The U.S. accounts for 25 percent of annual greenhouse gas pollution, which is good when you consider that we consume 33 percent of the resources used by the world every year, but bad considering that we account for only four percent of the world's population. We must take domestic action to reduce our emissions. The government signed a legally binding commitment to do that in 1997, producing the Kyoto Protocol, which would reduce the pollution of the world's industrial countries by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. The United States already has signed into law an agreement from 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which committed us to reduce our pollution and take a leadership role in addressing this problem. Unfortunately, due to then-President George H.W. Bush's, DC '48, insistence, that commitment was not legally binding.

Under the Clinton administration we continued to increase our greenhouse gas pollution and failed to hammer out the details of the Kyoto Protocol so that it could be implemented. The younger Bush, DC '68, with his plans to drill in the arctic and his deplorable handling of California's energy problems, does not look to set us on a better path. The Kyoto Protocol was a start, not sufficient to address the threat of climate change. We need to reduce carbon pollution by at least 60 percent to stabilize the climate. The U.S. should set to work to reduce its share through energy efficiency programs and renewable energy investments. There are estimates that energy efficiency alone in the U.S. could provide savings of up to 70 percent.

We can fight this close to home. We can prevent the reopening of the oil-burning English Station, which will further pollute the global atmosphere, as well as New Haven air—already some of the dirtiest in the country because of the Filthy Five plants, giving New Haven the nation's second-highest rate of childhood asthma. We can reduce energy use at Yale, take environmental concerns into account in our new construction projects, and set an example by significantly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. We can encourage the Yale Administration to vote the shares it holds in Exxon-Mobil, BP, and other petroleum companies to promote renewable energy and study ways to combat climate change. And, finally, we can express concern to our senators. After all, the timetable for disaster is within our lifetimes. We will be living with the devastating effects of climate change unless someone acts soon.

David Corson-Knowles, a sophomore in Trumbull College, is on the steering committee of the Yale Student Environmental Coalition and acted as an official observer to the climate negotiations at The Hague, Netherlands.

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