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46 Nations Pledge to Slow Planetary Global Warming

By grrlscientist on February 5, 2007.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the USA isn't included in this number, nor is China and India -- the two most rapidly growing economies in the world at this point.

The the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report [PDF] was written and published by a collaboration of hundreds of scientists around the world, and was approved by 113 nations, including the United States.

The charge led by French President Jacques Chirac came a day after the release of an authoritative -- and disturbingly grim -- scientific report in Paris that said global warming is "very likely" caused by mankind and that climate change will continue for centuries even if heat-trapping gases are reduced. It was the strongest language ever used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose last report was issued in 2001.

So my question is .. if the USA approves this report, why aren't we making any official concerted effort to slow down our production of greenhouse gasses?

Cited story.

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global warming

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This report is not really supposed to make recommendations. It does have several scenarios depending upon what happens in the future in terms of population growth, economic development, and emission controls. It will take a while to digest, and the important thing is to really do things rather than just pledge to do so.

Of course India and China wouldn't sign on - the West didn't have any restrictions on their explosive growth during the 19th and 20th centuries. Why should they have restrictions in the 21st? That's the mentality anyway.

And of course the US won't, the current administration would never allow it, and since we're probably the biggest polluter per capita on the planet, it would cripple our way of life.

Now all that said, it's time to stop being petty and find ways to rapidly, but not catastrophically, find ways to slow down what we have wrought. I don't have the answers, but I'm not a world renowned scientist either. That's their jobs. Oh, and the politicians need to listen to them...that may be the hardest part of all.