Gore Claims We Will Perish

Al Gore announced glaciers will melt, sea level rise, hurricanes vigorously devastate and human kind will be affected.

In his militant crusade of warning humanity of the planet`s warming, former American Vice-President Al Gore announced that glaciers will meld, seal level rise, hurricanes vigorously devastate and human kind will be affected “by a line of horrible catastrophes”.

While scientific world almost unanimously welcomes former vice-president’s decision to invest his intellectual and physical energy into a campaign of awareness of dangerous climate changes that await us, some experts still criticise the “apocalyptic tones” of some Gore`s forecasts and dispute scientific basis of some of his claims that attract most attention, assessing them as “exaggerated and wrong”.

Among most disputable Gore`s claims is the one of sea level raising by seven metres, which would flood large areas of New York, Florida and other densely populated areas of USA. Assessments of many scientists predict sea levels would rise 50 centimetres the most by the end of century as a result of glaciers melting. This is an insignificant rise to cause catastrophes which Gore predicts.

According to the vice-president, the temperatures will cause more often appearances of hurricanes which will be much more powerful that, for instance, Katrina hurricane which caused destruction in New Orleans.

But, scientists contradict this thesis as well. –One needs to be more careful when it comes to describing possible effects of climate changes on hurricanes- said James Hanson, environmental expert and NASA Goddard Institute director. Last season, for instance, caused a lot less hurricanes in the Atlantic that scientists had predicted.

In his campaign, of which, among other things, double Oscar award winning film “An Inconvenient Truth” and a book which that a bestseller speak of, Gore entirely neglects the possibility that climate changes might be a part of changes that repeat in cycles and are not directly linked with gases, resulting form human activity.

Geologist Don Easterbrook thus disputes Gore`s claim that our civilization has never encountered with such climate changes that are occurring on the planet right now. A study the geologist did for the period of past 15,000 years determined at least ten periods of climate changes similar to today`s. Some of these changes are “20 times larger” than the ones determined in our age.

Al Gore, although he allows that some information he uses might be discussed, he persists on resolute scientific foundation of his projections which are a result of long discussions with the most prominent experts of the area.

-Level of scientific agreement about planet`s warming was never so great. I try to express the essence of this life problem, using “non-scientific” language, understandable to me and the person who is listening to me- says Gore.

Italian ANSA agency published that around 2,000 residents of Carteret islands, belonging to New Guinea, might become the first world “ecological refugees”.

Small archipelago residents in south Pacific, ANSA writes, might soon be forced to move from their islands due to sea level rise, caused by global warming. They lost their 20-year-long desperate battle against the ocean. Obstacles they installed did not help, nor mangrove they planted in order to protect the shores.

Autonomous Bouganville Government Vice-Governor, Raymond Masono, said for Australian radio that the sea has already penetrated to most of fresh water springs and destroyed plantation, thus making the population move unavoidable to the Bouganville island, four hours of navigation from the archipelago.

Storm and tide contribute to the sea penetrating, while islanders are already receiving aid in clothes and basic need supplies. The atolls, discovered by explorer Philip Carteret about 85 kilometres north-east of Bouganville, have become impossible to survive on. Some of the houses were completely destroyed by the sea, while others are being flooded more often.

Masono explains that the first settlement on new territory is anticipated during the next months.

-We want to act systematically, and not react impulsively. The entire programme anticipates agreements with plantage owners and of other terrains with whom locations were determined that are appropriate for settlers from Carteret islands and other atolls - he added.

Carteret islands, with 2,050 residents, are most struck by seal level rising as a result of the green house effect, but 3,000 more islanders of the Mortlock, Fead and Tasman atolls, all in Papua New Guinea, also started to feel its consequences, said the official.

-there is a general feeling among the people that global warming is the cause of their situation- he said. Islanders have been fighting against sea advancement for years, constructing walls and planting mangroves, but the storms and tides continue to flood houses and gardens. According to assessments, the sea will completely flood the atolls by 2015. It seems that in states-archipelagos like Kiribati, Tuvali, Vanatu and the Marshall islands, many atolls are destined to remain underwater as a result of climate changes.