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Earth Government Science

Massive Government Report Says Climate Is Warming and Humans Are the Cause (npr.org) 415

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: It is "extremely likely" that human activities are the "dominant cause" of global warming, according to the the most comprehensive study ever of climate science by U.S. government researchers. The climate report, obtained by NPR, notes that the past 115 years are "the warmest in the history of modern civilization." The global average temperature has increased by about 1.8 degree Fahrenheit over that period. Greenhouse gases from industry and agriculture are by far the biggest contributor to warming. The findings contradict statements by President Trump and many of his Cabinet members, who have openly questioned the role humans play in changing the climate. The report states that the global climate will continue to warm. How much, it says, "will depend primarily on the amount of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) emitted globally." Without major reductions in emissions, it says, the increase in annual average global temperature could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit relative to pre-industrial times. Efforts to reduce emissions, it says, would slow the rate of warming.
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Massive Government Report Says Climate Is Warming and Humans Are the Cause

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  • Just wait (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Twitler will have it pulled.
    • Re:Just wait (Score:5, Insightful)

      by riverat1 ( 1048260 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @11:19PM (#55480749)

      Fortunately the report was basically completed before he took over the reigns of power. He can have it scrubbed from Federal web sites but the report is out in the wild now and he can't do much about that.

      • Re:Just wait (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Friday November 03, 2017 @07:42AM (#55481873)

        Here is the ironic thing, when I see a report about remarking about climage change: It must be something very notable and significant, because it is definitely in the financial interest of the powers that be to play it down.

        So, if scientists that will have Hell to pay for climate change are stepping forward with these results, the actual damage being done may be far, far worse than what we see now. Especially areas like the Sahel in Africa where when resources dry up, conflicts start, mainly because it turns to fighting or starving.

        Right now, the view in a lot of places may be "who cares about Africa?", but that view only makes groups like Daesh stronger. The world's problems cannot all be solved by bullets (Iraq and Afghanistan have shown the US and USSR that), so it might be in the interest of civilization to at least find ways to mitigate desertification, work on desalination and effective irrigation, and find ways to reclaim arable land from the sea.

  • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @10:47PM (#55480643) Journal

    "It is "extremely likely" that human activities are the "dominant cause" of global warming, according to the the most comprehensive study ever of climate science by U.S. government researchers. "

    I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked. How has this been allowed to go on without anyone warning us?

  • by countach ( 534280 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @10:56PM (#55480679)

    "the increase in annual average global temperature could reach 9 degrees Fahrenheit"

    It's ok, we just build some more coal power stations, turn up the air-con, and it's all good..

  • The reason why the report had such an easy passage out the door, all too late, no stopping it now, damage done, all we can do now is attempt to mitigate harm. No deny it, because it will be worse next year and the year after that et al and in fact realy catastrophic years could be in there, really catasrophic. Denial and fucking around and fuck everyone I wont more money now, too late even for that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]. You are already sinking and it will start to happen faster, done deal, you

  • Notice the split? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02, 2017 @11:11PM (#55480727)

    "The assessments are required by an act of Congress; the last one was published in 2014. "

    So we have these laws requiring the government workers to model climate change and make assessments of it, those models are used by military and civil planners to anticipate flooding, food shortages, etc. Driven by the best models the scientists can build from all the data.

    And we have Scott Pruit, head of the EPA, climate change denier, essentially driven by Hannity of Fox News, who in turn is simply sponsored propaganda of a dying coal industry. Pruit repeats basic flawed logic and misdirections to pretend its not happening.

    Notice the split? Scott isn't working from the science or the data from under him, he's working from the sponsored commentary on Fox News. But then that's just paid for propaganda, it's not science. So you have one group working from real data and models that bypass his agency, and his agency working from PR puff pieces written by industries looking for favors.

    That's not healthy.

    What if the head of the Defense Department did that? Suppose US was at war with Russia and Russia hired Hannity to push its propaganda. Instead of making choices based on all the data and science the government could muster, you'd have a military undermined from the top by its own boss. You can see that now with the Russian cyber attacks against USA, Fox is doing a full on deflection. Not a denial, a deflection. They know Russia is doing that, yet trying to get their viewers to ignore it as a non-story.

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      Errrrmmm...you mean Hannity hasn't already been hired by the Soviets? I guess we call them Russians now. How will we know when he stops being in their employ?

  • Debate.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02, 2017 @11:21PM (#55480753)

    Cue the level headed debate with a focus in facts, solutions and mutual respect.

  • Is this a report by a massive government or is the report itself massive? How big does a report have to be to be called massive?

    • As far as I can tell, a report qualifies as "massive" if a senator can read its contents aloud to extend a filibuster for more than 12 hours.
    • Why not both?

    • by jrumney ( 197329 )
      It's a report by Massive Government. Republicans will denounce it on this basis, as they want small government, and it saves making the same tired old argument that global warming is fake news.
  • by plopez ( 54068 ) on Thursday November 02, 2017 @11:48PM (#55480827) Journal

    Here we go:
    https://www.nrdc.org/trump-wat... [nrdc.org]

  • There are none so deaf as those who will not listen.
  • Okay, enough already! I got it. We are all doomed unless we lower our carbon footprint and the reason for out carbon footprint is the burning of coal, petroleum oil, and natural gas.

    We'll we can't just turn everything off, that's just asking for death. We can scale back our energy consumption in some ways. We got our LED lights, low flo toilets, four cylinder aluminum cars running on ethanol (which is alcohol abuse in my mind), we got public busing running on natural gas (better than diesel but not best

  • I, for one, welcome our climate-changing overlords!

    Seriously, it's way too cold out there.

  • The findings contradict statements by President Trump and many of his Cabinet members, who have openly questioned the role [...]

    I'm pretty sure a question can't be contradicted, only answered with some form of, "you're wrong".

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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