The Bush administration finally
concluded what we’ve been suspecting for some time now: that the climate is
changing, and that human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations are
“very likely” to be the cause of global warming.
The “Scientific Assessment of
the Effects of Global Change on the United States” has been released on Thursday
after four long years of waiting and a court order to give it a little push. The
report
(.pdf) acknowledges the climate change that is already being felt in the United
States.
The findings are based on
previous reports, including those of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, and were released two days before the actual deadline, May 31. The
administration was forced to come up with the report after environmental groups
took the matter to court.
The report concluded that in the
last 50 years, heat wave occurrences increased in the U.S., the sea-level constantly
reflected a rise every year, while the number of Atlantic hurricanes also
increased.
Human activities contributed to climate
extremes, such as abnormal temperatures; less frequent, but more intense
precipitations; larger peak wind speeds.
Carbon dioxide levels have
altered not only patterns of precipitations, and consequently U.S. water
resources, agriculture, land resources and biodiversity, but also human health.
The report added that the trend is very likely to continue over the next few
decades.
Among the conclusions of the
report, due to an increased frequency and severity of heat waves, the
population is likely to be more exposed to illnesses and death, especially the
young, elderly, frail and poor.
At the same time, increases in
extreme weather (storms, flooding) and accompanying events (wildfires following
long periods of drought) may also increase death rate, as well as increase the
number of injuries, infectious diseases, interruption of medical care for
chronic disease treatment, and stress-related disorders, and series of diverse
social effects, as disruption and migration.
According to the Global Change
Research Act (1990), the government needs to issue a report on global warming
every four years. However, no other report has been issued since 2000, which determined
environmental groups to demand the Bush administration to fulfill its
obligations.
It is well known that the Bush
administration takes more of an economic approach on global warming, rather
than an objective one, and that greenhouse emissions regulation is not
something they support.