Climate change

A few days ago, I spoke with someone that told me that he thinks that climate change isn’t happening and that it is a ploy for those who are rich to make more money. I was stunned by this response. Maybe it is because I am informing myself and keeping on top of the latest information, that I know that climate change is happening; granted, I am taking a seminar type class on the subject. But there was simply no trying to convince this person with numbers and facts that the Earth is warming. Maybe by ignoring the problem and blaming someone else, it will just go away. Maybe it is just his way of trying to maintain a blissful state.

Well, if you would like to know more about climate change, I found a few handy items that summarize the current state of wisdom on the subject.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a committee put together by the WHO and UN to review the research and put forth a report on the latest understandings of climate change. They put out a report in plain language for policy makers, you can get to it on the site through the press releases section or download it by clicking here.

The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment is another great source of easy to read information. A copy of the report can be found here. This report is put together by another intergovernmental panel, the Arctic Counsel, made up of the following countries: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the United States of America.

For some interesting commentary on climate change from the climate scientists themselves in the form of a blog, visit RealClimate.org.

The reports above are fairly long, but there is a lot of information out there and it is nice to have it packaged in a nice, handy-dandy summary.