Link: Climate Progress » Blog Archive » Top 10 global warming stories of 2007.
"2. Desperate Scientists: The world’s top climate scientists beg for action. First, we saw the IPCC’s bleak Fourth Assessment Report (summarized here), which warns that human emissions, left unchecked, could lead to rapid, multi-meter sea level rise; loss of most species; and widespread drought and desertification. Second, we heard IPCC head, Rajendra Pachauri, warn, “If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.” Finally, more than 200 scientists signed a statement asserting that, to avoid catastrophic impacts, global greenhouse gas emissions “must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose.” (And this isn’t even counting the repeated dire warnings of our nation’s top climate scientist, James Hansen, such as here and here and here, for instance.) Any sane person would be listening to our climate scientists — and an increasing number are, but not everyone….
"#1. Bushwhacked: Thanks to the misleadership of our President, the world took no action at Bali to reduce emissions, we had a sham international “climate summit,” the country continues to take no national action on greenhouse gas emissions, Congress was forced to drop almost all non-oil-related provisions to cut GHGs from the energy bill, the EPA blocked California and other major states from regulating tailpipe GHGs on their own, the Administration keeps muzzling climate scientists, and it keeps misallocating scarce clean tech dollars to hydrogen fuel cell vehicle research at the expense of real and timely solutions like energy efficiency and renewables — and that’s just the stuff we know about for sure!
Thanks to Cheney Bush and his henchmen (and henchwomen), the nation and the world have lost another crucial year — and are almost certain to lose another one next year — when, in fact, “What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future.” Our person of the year, who mistakes inflexibility for leadership, and consistency for wisdom, has also made the story of the year: President George W. Bush doesn’t just fiddle while the planet burns, he actively fans the flames and thwarts the fire-fighters."
