New Global Warming Warning from U.N.

Scientists See Hunger, Disease, Extinction

WASHINGTON – The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of alarming threats to the planet in a new report on global warming. The United Nations organization detailed dangers ranging from hunger and disease to species extinction in the report based on voluminous scientific data collected in the last five years.

“Time is wasting,” said Senator Bernie Sanders. “There no longer is any debate among serious scientists that our planet is in grave danger unless we undo the man-made damage to our environment from carbon dioxide pollution and from other greenhouse gases,” added the lead sponsor of the most sweeping Senate legislation to counter the effects of global warming.

Sanders also called it “disappointing and embarrassing” that the United States, according to reports from Brussels, joined representatives of China and Saudi Arabia in raising objections to the report and trying to water down the more serious warnings.

The same U.N. panel in February issued a report that concluded with virtual certainty that humans have been the main cause of warming in the past half century. The latest report examined the impact on animals, water supplies, ice sheets and regional climate conditions.

The report is available online at http://www.ipcc.ch/. It said that up to 30 percent of the Earth's species face an increased risk of vanishing if global temperatures rise 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above the average in the 1980s and '90s. Dry areas will become even more parched while other places on the planet will become more vulnerable to flooding, severe storms, and coastal erosion.

Sanders (I-Vt.) and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, are sponsors of the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, which calls for a reduction of emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

The bill is cosponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and by Sens. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii), Frank R. Lautenberg, (D-N.J.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.). Former Vice President Al Gore, a leading figure in the fight against global warming, has called the Sanders-Boxer bill is “an excellent piece of legislation.”

Sanders also said it is imperative that the United States devote significant resources to greatly increase the use of solar power, wind turbines, geothermal energy and other forms of sustainable and renewable energy. “The United States is lagging far behind other countries in this area and we’ve got to turn our policies around.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 6, 2007
1:36 PM