Word: globalization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...would be easy to assume that when the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declared in early 2007 that it was "very likely" that global warming was caused by man-made greenhouse-gas emissions, the scientific case on climate change was effectively closed. The evidence showed that when we add carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels or cutting down trees, those gases enhance the greenhouse effect and warm the planet. What else is there to figure...
Lubchenco is helping to change that. The marine biologist is leading the U.S. delegation at this week's World Climate Conference in Geneva, where delegates from more than 150 nations are meeting to craft a better global alert system for climate change. That means disseminating information down to the local level - how global warming could impact fisheries, farming, human health, even tourism. "What we need is a formal system that all people can trust to access vital information that can save their lives and protect property and economies," said Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization...
...idea is to make climate-change predictions a bit more like the weather report, in both accuracy and accessibility. Right now scientists' understanding of global warming is the opposite of the 6 p.m. forecast. While climatologists have a better and better picture of what will happen to the entire climate the further out they look, the same predictions get fuzzy over the near term, or regionally instead of globally. That can be remedied in part by spending more on climate science and building the kind of models that can drill down below the global level to the regional or even...
NOAA is taking the lead in the U.S., where the agency issued in June an in-depth report of how climate change would impact America state by state. What's needed now is a similar service for the world. At the Geneva conference, the plan is to create a Global Framework for Climate Services, a kind of NOAA to the world that can update predictions on global warming as they happen - rather than waiting for years. This is especially necessary for developing nations, especially in the tropics, which are more vulnerable to the impact of global warming, like droughts...
...Geneva conference will also help set the stage for Copenhagen, where governments will try to agree on a plan to reduce carbon emissions over the coming decades and avert the worst of global warming. But that won't be enough - global warming is already taking hold, and already affecting people on the ground, around the world. We'll need to change and adapt - and we won't be able to do that without information...