The United Nations [UN] Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] is due to release their fifth assessment report [AR5] on September 30, 2013, and climate change deniers are ramping up their activities urging us “not to worry about it.”
Interestingly, the more scientists come together on the issue of climate change study, recognizing that human activity is clearly responsible, the more climate change deniers come out of the wood-work to dispute their findings with pseudoscience and religious affirmations, or switching the topic to how bad it would be to change the status quo simply for some alarmist individuals. That being said, the world is not on target making the necessary changes to address climate change.
The UN IPCC AR5 report, to be released on Monday, is the result of a worldwide scientific collaboration, with participation by 259 authors from 39 different countries. I somehow doubt that, after four previous reports confirming the human impact on the climate, the IPCC’s participating authors from all over the world will about-face and say, “Sorry guys, we forgot to carry the one. No big deal.” On the other hand, a previous leak of AR5, back in December, has climate change deniers taking things out of context and downplaying the human impact.
Now that IPCC AR5 is nearing its actual release as a final draft, more climate change deniers, the likes of Tom Harris, who has no scientific background whatsoever, or Fred Singer, tobacco company expert-for-hire, are making headlines again. Has global warming slowed down in the last decade? Harris says “Don’t be scared,” but is our weather calming down as part of some supposedly-normal climate cycles? Sorry, but no, we should expect more severe weather as the climate continues to change and, in spite of the supposed effects of a solar minimum.
Image © IPCC
