From “Inconvenient” to Incontrovertible - Worldwatch Institute

Last year, the world was captivated by academy award and Nobel Prize nominee Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Now, the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows the science is not only inconvenient—it’s incontrovertible.

Some 2,500 scientists from more than 130 countries agree that there is at least a 90 percent probability that warming observed during the past 50 years is the result of human activity (up from 66 percent chance stated in the last IPCC report released in 2001).

IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri has said the report’s greatest contribution to the debate was in achieving consensus about the threat. The question now is: What can we do about global warming and how can we prepare our world for worsening storms, droughts, floods and other impacts?

See how…

• The United States (the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter and whose action is necessary to encourage China and India to reduce their emissions) can displace a large portion of its fossil fuels by looking to the American Energy vision.

• Cities—which cover only 0.4 percent of the Earth’s surface yet generate the bulk of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions—can make significant reductions in emissions by sourcing power locally and investing in energy efficiency.
  

Communities can plan for disasters due to the likely increase in sea-level rise, floods, heat waves, droughts, and hurricane intensity.