Report outlines global warming's effects
Pastor Dale Morgan
Report outlines global warming's effects*
POSTED: 0428 GMT (1228 HKT), March 10, 2007
Story Highlights
• Scientists' report will be released at April conference
• Report says parts of world will have water shortages, others floods
• Food production will increase at first, then famine will hit, report says
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The harmful effects of global warming on daily life
are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of
millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next
month at a meeting in Belgium.
At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of
their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and
sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international
scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.
Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will
mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will
thrive.
For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season
in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could
face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.
The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change focuses on global warming's effects and is the second in
a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more
than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited
by government officials.
But some scientists said the overall message is not likely to change
when it's issued in early April in Brussels, Belgium, the same city
where European Union leaders agreed this past week to drastically cut
greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Their plan will be presented to
President Bush and other world leaders at a summit in June.
The report offers some hope if nations slow and then reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions, but it notes that what's happening now isn't
encouraging.
"Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on
every continent," the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report
by the same international group that said the effects of global warming
were coming. But that report only mentioned scattered regional effects.
"Things are happening and happening faster than we expected," said
Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research
in Boulder, Colorado, one of the many co-authors of the new report.
The draft document says scientists are highly confident that many
current problems -- change in species' habits and habitats, more
acidified oceans, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and
increases in allergy-inducing pollen -- can be blamed on global warming.
For example, the report says North America "has already experienced
substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from recent
climate extremes," such as hurricanes and wildfires.
But the present is nothing compared to the future.
Global warming soon will "affect everyone's life ... it's the poor
sectors that will be most affected," Romero Lankao said.
And co-author Terry Root of Stanford University said: "We truly are
standing at the edge of mass extinction" of species.
The report's findings
The report included these likely results of global warming:
# Hundreds of millions of Africans and tens of millions of Latin
Americans who now have water will be short of it in less than 20 years.
By 2050, more than 1 billion people in Asia could face water shortages.
By 2080, water shortages could threaten 1.1 billion to 3.2 billion
people, depending on the level of greenhouse gases that cars and
industry spew into the air.
# Death rates for the world's poor from global warming-related
illnesses, such as malnutrition and diarrhea, will rise by 2030. Malaria
and dengue fever, as well as illnesses from eating contaminated
shellfish, are likely to grow.
# Europe's small glaciers will disappear with many of the continent's
large glaciers shrinking dramatically by 2050. And half of Europe's
plant species could be vulnerable, endangered or extinct by 2100.
# By 2080, between 200 million and 600 million people could be hungry
because of global warming's effects.
# About 100 million people each year could be flooded by 2080 by rising
seas.
# Smog in U.S. cities will worsen and "ozone-related deaths from climate
(will) increase by approximately 4.5 percent for the mid-2050s, compared
with 1990s levels," turning a small health risk into a substantial one.
# Polar bears in the wild and other animals will be pushed to extinction.
# At first, more food will be grown. For example, soybean and rice
yields in Latin America will increase starting in a couple of years.
Areas outside the tropics, especially the northern latitudes, will see
longer growing seasons and healthier forests.
Looking at different impacts on ecosystems, industry and regions, the
report sees the most positive benefits in forestry and some improved
agriculture and transportation in polar regions. The biggest damage is
likely to come in ocean and coastal ecosystems, water resources and
coastal settlements.
Africa, Asia to be hardest hit
The hardest-hit continents are likely to be Africa and Asia, with major
harm also coming to small islands and some aspects of ecosystems near
the poles. North America, Europe and Australia are predicted to suffer
the fewest of the harmful effects.
"In most parts of the world and most segments of populations, lifestyles
are likely to change as a result of climate change," the draft report
said. "Net valuations of benefits vs. costs will vary, but they are more
likely to be negative if climate change is substantial and rapid, rather
than if it is moderate and gradual."
This report -- considered by some scientists the "emotional heart" of
climate change research -- focuses on how global warming alters the
planet and life here, as opposed to the more science-focused report by
the same group last month.
"This is the story. This is the whole play. This is how it's going to
affect people. The science is one thing. This is how it affects me, you
and the person next door," said University of Victoria climate scientist
Andrew Weaver.
Many -- not all -- of those effects can be prevented, the report says,
if within a generation the world slows down its emissions of carbon
dioxide and if the level of greenhouse gases sticking around in the
atmosphere stabilizes. If that's the case, the report says "most major
impacts on human welfare would be avoided; but some major impacts on
ecosystems are likely to occur."
The United Nations-organized network of 2,000 scientists was established
in 1988 to give regular assessments of the Earth's environment. The
document issued last month in Paris concluded that scientists are 90
percent certain that people are the cause of global warming and that
warming will continue for centuries.