How long can there be a debate on climate change?
How long can there be a debate on this issue? A report upon a report continue to provide a very grim measure of the situation.
U.N.: Glaciers shrinking at record rate
ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said Sunday.
Scientists say warming would have a huge affect on India where the Himalayas feeds its rivers.
Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006, the U.N. agency said.
UNEP warned that further ice loss could have dramatic consequences particularly in India, whose rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers.
The west coast of North America, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, also would be affected, it said.
"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine," UNEP's executive director Achim Steiner said in a statement. "The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice."
He urged governments to agree stricter targets for emissions reductions at an international meeting next year in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.
On average, the glaciers shrank by 4.9 feet in 2006, the most recent year for which data are available.
The most severe loss was recorded at Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier, which shrank 10.2 feet in 2006, while Chile's Echaurren Norte glacier was the only one to grow slightly thicker.
"The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight," said Wilfried Haeberli, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service.
The Zurich-based body conducted the study on which the findings are based.
Haeberli said glaciers lost an average of about a foot of ice a year between 1980 and 1999. But since the turn of the millennium the average loss has increased to about 20 inches
It appears that glaciers are retreating and are doing so at an ever more alarming rate. This thing is speeding up. The question remains not whether climate change is apparent or not. Not even whether it is at least partially human-made. It is whether those who resist will continue to resist no matter the price.
U.N.: Glaciers shrinking at record rate
ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) -- Glaciers are shrinking at record rates and many could disappear within decades, the U.N. Environment Program said Sunday.
Scientists say warming would have a huge affect on India where the Himalayas feeds its rivers.
Scientists measuring the health of almost 30 glaciers around the world found that ice loss reached record levels in 2006, the U.N. agency said.
UNEP warned that further ice loss could have dramatic consequences particularly in India, whose rivers are fed by Himalayan glaciers.
The west coast of North America, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, also would be affected, it said.
"There are many canaries emerging in the climate change coal mine," UNEP's executive director Achim Steiner said in a statement. "The glaciers are perhaps among those making the most noise and it is absolutely essential that everyone sits up and takes notice."
He urged governments to agree stricter targets for emissions reductions at an international meeting next year in the Danish capital, Copenhagen.
On average, the glaciers shrank by 4.9 feet in 2006, the most recent year for which data are available.
The most severe loss was recorded at Norway's Breidalblikkbrea glacier, which shrank 10.2 feet in 2006, while Chile's Echaurren Norte glacier was the only one to grow slightly thicker.
"The latest figures are part of what appears to be an accelerating trend with no apparent end in sight," said Wilfried Haeberli, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Service.
The Zurich-based body conducted the study on which the findings are based.
Haeberli said glaciers lost an average of about a foot of ice a year between 1980 and 1999. But since the turn of the millennium the average loss has increased to about 20 inches
It appears that glaciers are retreating and are doing so at an ever more alarming rate. This thing is speeding up. The question remains not whether climate change is apparent or not. Not even whether it is at least partially human-made. It is whether those who resist will continue to resist no matter the price.