Earth Day 2009: Obama Energy Chief Lays Out Climate Doomsday Scenario

[babylonsister]

Earth Day 2009: Obama Energy Chief Lays Out Climate Doomsday Scenario

04/19/09 12:44 PM


Days before Earth Day 2009, President Obama's Energy Secretary Steven Chu gave a press briefing at the "Summit of the Americas" in Trinidad and Tobago where he laid out the potentially disastrous consequences if the world community doesn't unite to combat climate change.

Chu, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997, detailed several of the most dramatic impacts that global warming could have, such as several island nations being submerged.

We've posted the transcript below -- take a look:

* * * * *

SECRETARY CHU: Well, I had no discussions in this summit meeting on the issue as to whether the climate is really changing or what are potential economic consequences. Now, in full candor, I haven't talked with representatives from Venezuela yet, but I think they're -- in terms of discussing whether the climate is changing or whether humans have caused it, I think for the most part this debate is over. It's something -- yes, it's changing; that's a demonstrable fact. If one looks at the latest IPCC reports, there's very, very convincing evidence -- very high probability it was caused predominantly by greenhouse gas emissions. And what is not known with certainty is what are the range of effects that might happen, and -- because that, quite frankly, also depends on what the world does.

But let me just say that there are certainly a reasonable probability that -- I'm sure the people in this room have heard this -- that in the last IPCC report, the 2007 report, they said that it's going to be somewhere between two and four -- two and a half, four and a half -- I'm not sure of the exact numbers -- degrees Centigrade change.

And so let me remind you that the Earth has already warmed up by about 0.8 degrees Centigrade; that the experts acknowledge that there is another 1 degree Centigrade already built into the system, even if humans stopped carbon emissions today flat. That's because we put enough greenhouse gases up into the atmosphere, the sun continues to warm up the Earth, and until you reach a new equilibrium or the heat from the Earth then reaches the equilibrium -- what's coming in and what's getting reflected back -- there's 1 degree change already; that there's a reasonable probability we can go above 4 degrees Centigrade to 5 and 6 more. That means we have a -- there's a reasonable probability, and certainly in business-as-usual scenario, we can go to 5 or 6 degrees Centigrade.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/19/earth-day-2009-obama-ener_n_188721.html

[Cha]

1. I'm so thankful that Steven Chu

is heading up our Energy Dept now. Back to Reality!

[polichick]

2. Almost 40 years after the first Earth Day, we have a no-bullshit leader in Chu.