AAAS Issues Consensus Statement on Global Warming

Yet another scientific organization has issued a consensus statement on global warming:

The board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation’s leading general science organization, yesterday issued a consensus statement declaring global climate change “a growing threat to society.”

The statement, released at a town hall meeting of school teachers in San Francisco, marked the first time that the board of the influential AAAS, publisher of the journal Science, has taken a stand on global warming. AAAS held its annual meeting there over the weekend and organized the town hall on climate change, along with the California Science Teachers Association, the National Science Teachers Association and the United Educators of San Francisco, a union group.

The board’s statement attributes Earth’s recent warming to human activity, noting: “The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a critical greenhouse gas, is higher than it has been for at least 650,000 years. The average temperature of the Earth is heading for levels not experienced for millions of years.”

The board called for “rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” warning: “Delaying action to address climate change will increase the environmental and societal consequences as well as the costs.”

It was the second high-profile statement on the issue in recent weeks: Last month, the United States Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of major companies and environmental groups, called for a mandatory cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in order to curb further global warming. On Tuesday, the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, a coalition of European and U.S. firms such as Air France, Alcoa and Florida Power & Light, chaired by Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, plans to announce a worldwide framework for addressing climate change.

For those in the reality based community this isn’t major news as global warming has already been accepted by the scientific community. On the other hand, conservatives will continue to disbelieve in global warming, as well as continuing to disbelieve in evolution and the theory that the earth is round and not flat.

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