The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says there can be little doubt that humans are responsible for warming the planet, but the organisation has reduced its overall estimate of this effect by 25 per cent. […]
The panel, however, has lowered predictions of how much sea levels will rise in comparison with its last report in 2001.
Climate change sceptics are expected to seize on the revised figures as evidence that action to combat global warming is less urgent.
One such skeptic, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma), has already responded:
“We are all skeptics now. It appears that the UN is now acknowledging what an increasing number of scientists who study the climate have come to realize: Predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming are simply unsustainable,” Senator Inhofe said.
As anyone who has been following the Senator's well-documented position on this issue would expect, Inhofe certainly didn't end there:
The upcoming UN IPCC assessment is reported to ‘halve its predictions for sea-level rise by 2100,’ according to the Telegraph article. The UN’s lowering of mankind’s impact on the climate is reportedly because of “a refinement due to better data on how climate works.”
“It is remarkable that sea level rise upper estimates have been cut nearly in half since the last IPCC assessment in 2001, because of scientific ‘refinement due to better data.’ Climate science is always going through these ‘refinements.’ The erroneous prediction of a coming ice age in the 1970’s also faded away due to ‘a refinement due to better data,’” Senator Inhofe said. “As I detailed in my Senate floor speech on September 25, the media has alternated between four separate global cooling and warming scares since 1895. Each climate scare eventually faded away due to similar ‘refinements due to better data.’”
“Even the UN appears to now be sobering up and dousing much needed cold water on the global warming alarmism promoted by much of the mainstream media, Hollywood, NASA scientist James Hansen and former Vice President Al Gore. News that global warming alarmism is more hype than fact should not surprise those who viewed my committee’s “Climate Change and the Media” hearing last week or read the EPW’s new publicly released ‘Skeptics Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism,’” Senator Inhofe added. (For more info on ‘Skeptic’s Guide’ go to: http://www.epw.senate.gov/fact.cfm?party=rep&id=266711 )
“As Chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee, I have given over 10 climate change speeches and held four full committee hearings examining the global warming issue since 2003. After several decades of climate hype, the UN appears to finally be conceding that previous estimates of climatic doom have been over-hyped and the science was simply not there to project these frightening ‘extreme scenarios,’” Senator Inhofe added.
“Eventually, even the peddlars of climate alarmism will have to concede that the hoopla over manmade catastrophic global warming and the proposed solutions like the costly and ineffective Kyoto Protocol, will prove to be one of the history's most misguided concerns-- joining the 1970's coming ice age fears, overpopulation and famines scares -- to name just a few.
This news from the UN will not be greeted warmly by advocates of climatic doom. One can almost imagine the grieving faces of the Hollywood celebrities and environmentalists as they hear the new UN climate assessment and realize that they are way outside the ‘consensus’ on manmade global warming. With the continued scientific demise of manmade catastrophic global warming fears, the environmentalists and publicity and grant seeking scientists and many in the media, may now have to find another dubious environmental doomsday cause to scare the public and policy makers,” Senator Inhofe concluded.
Will anyone besides Inhofe notice this new assessment? Stay tuned.
