Below is a link to recent statement by Jim Hansen regarding global warming impacts. Directly below is a quote from that statement. fyi. Peggy Miller, Highland Winds .... have a good day.
Despite uncertainties in reserve sizes, it is clear that if we burn all the fossil fuels, or even half of remaining reserves, we will send the planet toward the ice-free state with sea level about 250 feet higher than today. It would take time for complete ice sheet disintegration to occur, but a chaotic situation would be created with changes occurring out of control of future generations. Oil may already be about half depleted, i.e., the world may be close to peak oil production (implying that the IPCC estimate of reserves is closer to the truth than the EIA estimate). In either case, common sense suggests that the largest oil pools will be exploited and the carbon dioxide, which is emitted mainly from tailpipes, will end up in the atmosphere. Gas, the least carbon intensive and cleanest burning fossil fuel, also surely will be exploited. The obvious conclusion is that the only practical way to avoid climate catastrophe is to terminate emissions from the largest fossil fuel source: coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. If coal emissions are phased out between 2010 and 2030, global fossil fuel emissions would begin to fall rapidly as shown in Figure 2. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: James Hansen <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 5:52 PM Subject: Strategies and Sundance Kid To: [email protected] To be removed from Jim Hansen's e-mail distribution respond with REMOVE as subject. A post "Strategies to Address Global Warming & Is Sundance Kid a Criminal?" is available at: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2009/20090713_Strategies.pdf
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