Word: scientists
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...There are several levels of our complaint," MacCleery says. "[Graham] does not hold degrees in any hard sciences yet he refers to himself repeatedly in stories as a scientist. It's fair to say that if you're evaluating the health effects of dioxin, you should know something about biology...
...This is very bad news," says a research scientist with the biological resources division of the U.S. Geological Survey, who specializes in endangered species research, and who, as a government employee, prefers to remain anonymous. "This move is far too extreme - and it's also ironic, considering Bush's campaign promises to make government more responsive to citizens. Now he's decided to give government the upper hand, and to cut the public out of a decision-making process that impacts...
Research by M.I.T. atmospheric scientist Richard Lindzen suggests that warming will tend to make cirrus clouds go away. Another critic, John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, says that while the models reproduce the current climate in a general way, they fail to get right the amount of warming at different levels in the atmosphere. Neither Lindzen nor Christy (both IPCC authors) doubts, however, that humans are influencing the climate. But they question how much--and how high temperatures will go. Both scientists are distressed that only the most extreme scenarios, based on huge population growth...
Even if such a tipping point doesn't materialize, the more drastic effects of global warming might be only postponed rather than avoided. The IPCC's calculations end with the year 2100, but the warming won't. World Bank chief scientist, Robert Watson, currently serving as IPCC chair, points out that the CO2 entering the atmosphere today will be there for a century. Says Watson: "If we stabilize [CO2 emissions] now, the concentration will continue to go up for hundreds of years. Temperatures will rise over that time...
That could be truly catastrophic. The ongoing disruption of ecosystems and weather patterns would be bad enough. But if temperatures reach the IPCC's worst-case levels and stay there for as long as 1,000 years, says Michael Oppenheimer, chief scientist at Environmental Defense, vast ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could melt, raising sea level more than 30 ft. Florida would be history, and every city on the U.S. Eastern seaboard would be inundated...