Blair is waking up

Well, at least the Prime Minister of Britain is finally sounding the alarm regarding global warming. The article is from The Guardian and it's entitled, "PM issues blunt warning on climate change". Here's part of what it says:

Tony Blair warns that the impact of climate change may be more serious than previously thought in a new government report on global warming published today.

The report raises fears that both the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are likely to melt, leading to a devastating rise in sea levels.

It warns of large-scale and irreversible disruption if temperatures rise by more than 3C (5.4F) - well within the range of climate change projections for the century.

Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change is published as a book and collates evidence presented by scientists at a conference hosted by the UK Meteorological Office last
February.

The conference predicted that greenhouse gases would raise global temperatures by between 1.4C and 5.8C over this century.

"It is clear from the work presented that the risks of climate change may well be greater than we thought," Mr Blair wrote in the forward to the book.

"It is now plain that the emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisation and economic growth from a world population that has increased six-fold in 200 years, is causing global warming at a rate that is unsustainable."

The book includes concerns expressed by the head of the British Antarctic Survey, Professor Chris Rapley, that the huge West Antarctic ice sheet may be starting to disintegrate.

Scientists believe such an event would raise sea levels around the world by almost 5m (16 ft).

Prof Rapley writes that a previous report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change dismissing worries about the ice sheet's stability had to be revised: "The last IPCC report characterised Antarctica as a slumbering giant in terms of climate change. I would say it is now an awakened giant. There is real concern."

"There is real concern." Well, that's putting it mildly. We ought not to be merely concerned. We ought to be absolutely terrified.

Now the question is, will Tony Blair try to talk some sense into George Bush? And if he did, would it do any good? I'm not optimistic.

UPDATE: All right, this is disgusting. CNN picked up the above story and published it on its International Edition web page in an article entitled, "Climate risk 'worse than thought'". It is nowhere to be found - I mean nowhere - on the U.S. Edition. Don't even try to tell me that's not bias.