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Economists ignoring threat of climate change says Royal Society The Royal Society July 20, 2006 Economists need to play "a bigger and more constructive role in dealing with the threat of climate change" said Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, the academy of sciences of the United Kingdom. Before last week's debate in the House of Lords on the economics of climate change, Rees criticized recent media articles on the economics of climate change. "It is a sad fact that a lot of the economic commentary on climate change in the media has seriously downplayed current scientific knowledge, even suggesting that climate change is just another scare story, or that the challenges can be met merely by treating them as questions of domestic economics," wrote Reeds. "Let us be clear: climate change is real and it is a global problem, as was emphasised last year in the joint statement by the national academies of science of the G8 nations plus Brazil, China and India." "Of course, there are uncertainties in our understanding of climate change, as there are across all areas of science. But the scientific evidence we have is compelling. Rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are warming our world, changing our climate and making our oceans more acidic. While not all of the impacts will be negative, the higher the greenhouse gas levels climb, the bigger the adverse impacts will become, and the more we will have to do to mitigate and adapt."
It adds: "The Committee's report states that we do not believe that today's scientists are crying wolf''. This is a rather curious assertion, since it creates the impression that the Committee actually considered the ludicrous notion that the international scientific community has taken part in an elaborate hoax, straight from the pages of Michael Crichton's fictional State of Fear'. This shows the Committee's apparent lack of familiarity with the compelling scientific evidence that has been documented in scientific papers by many thousands of independent researchers around the world over the past few decades." It concludes: "On the impacts of climate change, the Committee's report was remarkably complacent, claiming that many of the adverse effects can be offset by adaptation'. It seems unlikely that human populations could comfortably live in a world of more extreme weather events and sea levels that eventually rise by tens of metres. And of course, the evidence is that other species are struggling to cope with the effects of climate change that have already occurred." "Of course, our response to climate change needs to be a combination of both adaptation and mitigation, equitably funded, and economists need to contribute constructively to both these broad areas of action. I look forward to the results of the review being carried out for the Government by Sir Nicholas Stern on the economics of climate change, and I hope that he will provide a rather more positive contribution to the debate than the committee's report." This is a modified news release from The Royal Society Recommend this article? Comments? >Digg this article | >Hugg this article | Contact News options
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