Today the
fourth report from the
IPCC has been released. You can grab the report
here. It's only 21 pages long, including the cover sheet. Here's the executive summary: by the end of this century:
- Probable temperature rise between 3.25°F and 7.2°F
- Possible temperature rise between 1.98°F and 11.52°F
- Sea level will probably rise by 11 to 17 inches
- Arctic summer sea ice disappears in second half of century
- It is more than 90% certain that there will be frequent warm spells, heat waves and heavy rainfall
- It is more than 66% certain that there will be an increase in droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high tides.
Of course,
Punxsutawnee Phil came out in support of the report, predicting an early spring, something that he has only done in 13% of the last 112 predictions.
Now that I've gotten the humor out of the way, here's an
article in the Guardian about how the
American Enterprise Group, a
think tank of the following variety...
The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.
...has been offering scientists $10,000 bribes to come out against the report. One would think that this means that it's difficult to find scientists who would naturally come to that conclusion. One might also conclude that Punxsatawnee Phil is part of the vast, left-wing conspiracy in the scientific community.
Enough with the car already. I'm back on two wheels. I made the journey very carefully. I thought the warmth of yesterday would have eliminated the black ice by today, but there are patches where the snow melt runs slowly across the path. The underpasses were particularly treacherous.
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