Ross: Back from the future, with a warning
Dec 17, 2018, 6:10 AM
At a big UN meeting in Poland over the weekend, 200 countries finally agreed on the rules for cutting carbon emissions, but they could not agree on how to enforce them.
There still seems to be some doubt over whether the CO2 problem is that urgent. It feels like those movies where a scientist comes back from the future to warn us, but no one does anything.
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I found clip from NOAA scientist, Daniel Albritton, whose testimony before Congress was very clear:
If greenhouse gases continue to grow unabated, the current understanding says that it is likely, in fact quite likely, that greenhouse warnings will eventually occur in the future with temperatures higher than we have seen in our natural record.
That’s Dr. Daniel Albritton testifying before Congress in July of 1988 — over 30 years ago. And we now know his prediction was correct. He was a voice from the future, talking directly into that microphone, to the people elected to make the tough decisions. And they listened.
“You scientists have given us the word, you’ve sent us the signal, you’ve given the intellectual underpinnings for action,” said Representative James Scheurer at the time.
And yet, here we are. Still arguing. I’m beginning to think I know how this movie ends. But why be a spoiler? We’ll all find out soon enough, I suppose.
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