Earth Going to Hell in a Handbasket

(UN) (Not Satire) The United Nations on Friday issued its most dramatic warning yet about the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change on the planet. European political leaders say we must cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to a climate change process that is already underway."

Climate change in the coming century may lead to disasters ranging from famine in Africa to the thinning of Himalayan glaciers, according to the long-awaited second part of an extensive United Nations report on global warming. More than 100 countries represented in the UN's panel on climate change spent a tense Thursday night in Brussels trying to agree unanimously on the language of a final draft.

The report, prepared by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), provides the first confirmation from the entire international scientific community that the burning of fossil fuels by humans is one of the main culprits of global warming.

Scientists "have finally established at the global level that there is an anthropogenic, there is a man made climate signal coming through on plants, animals, water and ice," said Martin Parry, co-chair of the IPCC working group the assembled report. "This is the first time this signal has been confirmed at the international level."