| Searing summer temperatures are shattering records | | | | are going to get big climate change." |
| across much of the northern hemisphere. Some | | | | But scientists say arresting global warming is a |
| European nuclear power plants have cut output | | | | daunting challenge. For one thing, carbon dioxide has a |
| because river water used to cool reactors is too | | | | lifetime of 50 to 100 years in the atmosphere. |
| warm. Forest fires are breaking out in Europe and the | | | | Rutgers University climate researcher Anthony |
| United States. Are these signs of global warming? | | | | Broccoli says ocean warming compounds the problem. |
| Scientists say no single weather event can be | | | | "Heat is going into the ocean and gradually the effect |
| attributed to warming. But they say those incidents | | | | of that heat going into the ocean would be to make |
| are consistent with it and may worsen unless humans | | | | the climate warmer, even if we stopped raising |
| stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. | | | | atmospheric CO-2 levels today." |
| Skeptics argue that global warming is part of the | | | | The 1997 Kyoto Protocol commits more than 120 |
| natural climate cycle. They say whatever humans | | | | signing nations to limiting greenhouse gas emissions to |
| contribute to it will not cause it to be irreversible. | | | | 1990 levels. The United States is not part of the |
| VOA's David McAlary examines the issues. | | | | agreement because President Bush withdrew the |
| In the past year, several scientific reports have | | | | country from it soon after taking office in 2001. |
| alerted the world to increasing glacier melting in | | | | This was the correct move, according to Myron Ebell |
| Alaska, Greenland, and Antarctica, reducing habitat | | | | of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington |
| for polar bears and other forms of life. | | | | public policy research group promoting government |
| The habitat for beetles that ravage trees has | | | | deregulation. "There is just so much exaggeration |
| expanded from the normally warm U.S. southwest | | | | involved in these claims about the impacts of climate |
| into the evergreen forests of British Columbia. | | | | change." |
| Warmer tropical waters seem to be bleaching coral | | | | Ebell does not believe global warming is a serious |
| reefs. | | | | threat. But he says even if it were, the Kyoto |
| The general scientific view is that these changes are | | | | Protocol is bad politics. He believes restricting energy |
| caused by a heat-trapping blanket of carbon dioxide | | | | use to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will hurt |
| and other gases in the atmosphere emitted by coal, | | | | national economies. "All of this effort is going for |
| natural gas, and gasoline burning. | | | | nothing. The reason I believe that is because the |
| Richard Somerville of the Scripps Institution of | | | | world cannot afford to go on the kind of energy diet |
| Oceanography in San Diego says the current warming | | | | that the Kyoto Protocol is the first step of." |
| trend is different from ones that have occurred | | | | Richard Somerville at the Scripps Institution of |
| earlier in Earth's history. "We know enough now to | | | | Oceanography agrees that the Kyoto Protocol is |
| be able to say that the current warming, the | | | | flawed. But he believes the flaw is its insufficient limits |
| warming that we've seen in the last decades of the | | | | on greenhouse gas emissions. He says they will make |
| 20th century, is primarily due to human causes." | | | | only a negligible difference, but argues that the |
| The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on | | | | accord is better than nothing. "Kyoto keeps the issue |
| Climate Change says the atmosphere has 30 percent | | | | alive. One of the advantages of signing Kyoto is it |
| more carbon dioxide than a century ago and Earth's | | | | gets you to the point where you can look past |
| average surface temperature has risen nearly one | | | | Kyoto, where the nations of the world can come |
| degree Celsius in that time. The group warns that it | | | | together with the experience of Kyoto, which |
| can be expected to go up much more in the next | | | | involves large industries, and decide what does it |
| 100 years -- between one-and-a-half and nearly six | | | | make sense to try next?" |
| degrees. | | | | But opponents of the Kyoto accord say the next |
| The panel says this could mean a sea level rise of up | | | | step should be nature's. Myron Ebell says glaciers |
| to one meter by the end of this century, possibly | | | | have been melting since the end of the last ice age |
| engulfing coastal regions and island countries. | | | | about 10,000 years ago, yet people have adapted. |
| U.S. space agency climate expert James Hansen was | | | | He argues that global warming has benefits, such as |
| one of the first scientists to warn of global warming | | | | a longer growing season and hardier crops. |
| in the 1980s. He says the world is nearing the time | | | | "Carbon dioxide is necessary for plants to |
| when it cannot be reversed. "We're getting very | | | | photosynthesize, so if there is more carbon dioxide in |
| close to a tipping point in the climate system. If we | | | | the atmosphere, plants should grow more quickly, |
| don't get out of our business-as-usual scenarios and | | | | more vigorously and they should be more resistant |
| begin to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, we | | | | to things like drought," says Ebell. |