Global warming
Global warming is a controversial theory that claims that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) due to industrialization is causing temperatures to increase around the world, to the detriment of our environment. Al Gore, Vice President under President Clinton from 1992 to 2000, is a high profile advocate of this theory. Promoters of this theory, including many prominent scientists, call for international treaties, like one proposed in Kyoto, Japan, to limit carbon emissions using a combination of conservation and technological innovation.
The theory is widely accepted within the scientific community. On February 2, 2007, an internatonal panel of hundreds of scientists and representatives of 113 governments issued a report concluding:
- The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely that is not due to known natural causes alone."[1]
There are some scientists among the critics of the theory that global warming is caused by human activity. For example, Dr. Fred Singer observed that "CO2 changes have lagged about 800 years behind the temperature changes. Global warming has produced more CO2, rather than more CO2 producing global warming."[2]
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