How
is this for timing. Just released today. (mb)
LONDON (Reuters)
- Climate change is already increasing the frequency and intensity
of natural disasters, and the trend is likely to continue according
to a report released Friday by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
The report,
'Climate Change and Extreme Weather Events', said global temperatures
would increase, sea levels would rise, and few places in the world
would be spared an increase in violent rainstorms, droughts, tropical
cyclones and other climatic disruptions.
Equation:
(mitch battros)
Sunspots = Solar Flares = Magnetic Shift
= Shifting Ocean and Jet Stream Currents = Extreme Weather
Dr. Ute Collier,
head of the WWF's Climate Change Program, said the evidence to
show extreme weather was the result of global warming was overwhelming.
"We got leading
scientists to investigate (the evidence) -- we wanted scientists
because they're often reluctant to link events such as more floods
and the disappearance of Arctic ice to climate change -- and they've
said that climate change is clearly having an impact on the frequency
and intensity of natural disasters," Collier told BBC radio Friday.
The report
was compiled for the WWF by Pier Vellings and Willem van Verseveld
of the Institute of Environmental Studies at the Vrije University
in Amsterdam, using observations and documents on climate patterns
produced by various organizations over recent decades.
Stark Choice
For World
The authors
said the increase in extreme weather would affect different parts
of the world differently, and that the southern hemisphere would
suffer most.
Southern Europe
was expected to become drier while northern Europe would become
wetter. In Britain, summer droughts in the southeast would become
more frequent and there would be more winter rainfall across the
country, with more frequent flooding.
The authors
are cautious over the causes of climate change, but said "at least
part of the damage caused by weather extremes is due to human-induced
climate change."
"The world
faces a stark choice -- reduce emissions or face the fury of nature,"
said Collier.
However, Richard
North of the Institute of Economic Affairs said the consensus
view of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
-- a panel of leading world scientists -- was that little could
be done to reverse the trend of global warming, and that humans
needed to adjust to it.
"The IPCC
says we've put our foot on the accelerator and taking it off a
bit won't make much difference," he told BBC radio. "The Greens
are defending very high petrol prices. They're ignoring evidence
that fuel prices have doubled in the last decade but it's had
hardly any impact on carbon dioxide emissions."
Mitch Battros
Producer - Earth Changes TV
http://www.earthchangesTV.com
ECTV
Store: http://www.earthchangestv.com/VStore/index2000.htm
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