Global Warming

Had anyone heard of global warming before Al Gore's 2006 movie, An Inconvenient Truth? Most definitely, yes. In 1990, the United Nations issued its first report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lo and behold, it said humans might well be causing global warming, and that it would have a broad array of potentially dire consequences. In the past 17 years, the science has become more clear and -- in many cases -- more worrying.

Unfortunately, a concerted effort by certain companies to obscure the emerging world consensus on the climate worked all too well, and the American public was convinced scientists themselves were still arguing over human's role in global warming long after the matter was settled. In 2007, the UN panel issued its fourth assessment, upping the ante by stating that there it is a near-certainty that humans are the primary driving force of global warming, that some extreme weather today is evidence of early consequences, and that the future is potentially very scary if we don't act soon, act decisively and act aggressively.

Unfortunately, we haven't been kind to the atmosphere in the 17 years since the U.N. first raised concern about global warming. The world's pollution of greenhouse gases increased more than 26% in that time, and the United States continued to be the largest contributor of that pollution on a per-person basis, though China in 2007 overtook the U.S. as the world's single largest source. The imperative to act has never been greater. The Department of Energy projects that the next 17 years could bring an increase in pollution of another 47% if nothing is done. That leaves an awful lot of room for this generation to make a very big difference.

To return to 17-Year Progress Report Index, click here.

To read Seventeen Magazine's green special, click here.

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