Galway Greens

The IPCC is the foremost global organisation in relation to Climate Change. To find out more about them, visit the link http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm. While man’s impact on climate change is likely to always be disputed, the IPCC fourth assessment synthesis report (in 2007) states that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) greenhouse gas concentrations.

Think of hydrocarbons as rays of ancient sunlight. The earth controlled previous periods of extreme global warming by burying carbon underground. We’ve now released about half the buried oil, almost half the gas and a significant amount of the coal in about 150 years.

The graph below from page 6 of http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf compares natural and man-made global warming.

Even for the climate-change skeptics out there, there is the sustainability picture to consider, where we are wasting many of our valuable resources.  High energy prices are attributed to among other things peak oil and gas which has now become of major economic concern.