The Ithaca Journal, Sat. Apr. 14, 2007, page 1A.ALBANY -- Imagine if summers in New York were more like those in Georgia. Huge rainstorms cause massive floods that are followed by months of drought...This is the picture that a climate-change expert painted here Friday Arthur DeGaetano, a Cornell University professor and head of the Northeast Regional Climate Center, said climate change is already inevitable, but human could adapt to those changes if GHG are reduced now. However if we continue in our trend of fossil fuel dependency and global industrialization without mandated limits, we could be heading for catastrophe
Participants in the event will be photographed at 12:15 with a banner reading: "Step It Up Congress! Cut Carbon 80% by 2050!"
The Ithaca Journal, Sat. Apr. 14, 2007, page 4A
But at least almost everyone now agrees that we must act, if not at the necessary speed. If we're to have a high chance of preventing global temperatures from rising by 2C (3.6F) above preindustrial levels, we need, in the rich nations, a 90% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030. The greater part of the cut has to be made at the beginning of this period. To see why, picture two graphs with time on the horizontal axis and the rate of emissions plotted vertically. On one graph the line falls like a ski jump: a steep drop followed by a shallow tail. On the other it falls like the trajectory of a bullet. The area under each [curve] represents the total volume of greenhouse gases produced in that period. They fall to the same point by the same date, but far more gases have been produced in the second case, making runaway climate change more likely.
George Monbiot writing in The Guardian, 10/31/2006