Alternative Energy Bulletin

Global Warming

Global warming is the observed increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans in recent decades and its projected continuation.  Models referenced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predict that global temperatures are likely to increase by 1.1 degrees C to 6.4 degrees C (2.0 degrees F to 11.5 degrees F) during the twenty-first century.  Global average near-surface atmospheric temperature rose 0.74 degrees C plus/minus 0.18 degrees C (1.3 degrees F plus/minus 0.32 degrees F) during the last century (see chart below).

An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including a rising sea level and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation.  These changes may increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as floods, draughts, heat waves, hurricanes, and tornadoes.  Other consequences include higher or lower agricultural yields, glacier retreat, reduced summer streamflows, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease.

Increase of Greenhouse Gases

Measurements from Antarctic ice cores show that just before industrial emissions began, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were about 280 parts per million by volume.  From the same ice cores it appears that carbon dioxide concentrations stayed between 260 and 280 ppm during the preceding 10,000 years.  Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the concentrations of many of the greenhouse gases have increased.  The concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by about 100 ppm (i.e., from 280 ppm to 380 ppm).  The first 50 ppm increase took place in about 200 years, from the start of the Industrial Revolution to around 1973; the next 50 ppm increase took place in about 33 years, from 1973 to 2006.

An Inconvenient Truth is an Academy Award-winning documentary film about climate change, specifically global warming, directed by Davis Guggenheim and presented by former United States Vice President Al Gore.

An Inconvenient Truth is also the title of a companion book by Gore, which reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller lists of July 2 and August 13, 2006, and again during several months on the list.

The film premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival and opened in New York and Los Angeles on May 24, 2006.  It is the third-highest-grossing documentary in the United States to date.  Both Gore and Paramount Classics, the film's distributor, have pledged proceeds from the film to further educational campaigns about climate change.  The film was released on DVD by Paramount Home Entertainment on November 21, 2006.

In 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Al Gore and to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Mayors for Climate Protection

Smart Power

National Resources Defense Council

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