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Science reporting on climate change: the severity is downplayed for political reasons

Observer 23rd Sept 2018 , Warnings about the dangers of global warming are being watered down in the
final version of a key climate report for a major international meeting
next month, according to reviewers who have studied earlier versions of the
report and its summary.

They say scientists working on the final draft of
the summary are censoring their own warnings and “pulling their
punches” to make policy recommendations seem more palatable to countries
– such as the US, Saudi Arabia and Australia – that are reluctant to
cut fossil-fuel emissions, a key cause of global warming.

“Downplaying the worst impacts of climate change has led the scientific authors to omit
crucial information from the summary for policymakers,” said one
reviewer, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on
Climate Change and the Environment.

The report – to be presented at a
meeting in Korea in early October – will make clear that allowing
temperatures to rise by 2C will have devastating consequences, including
rising sea levels, spreading deserts, loss of natural habitats and species,
dwindling ice-caps and increases in the number of devastating storms.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/23/scientists-changing-global-warming-report-please-polluters

September 26, 2018 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change, secrets,lies and civil liberties