This week’s been a busy and interesting week for climate discussions! From reports about how the White House bullied scientists into downplaying the seriousness of global warming to Al Gore being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and of course, the report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Big news! The IPCC released their much-anticipated summary, which the NY Times calls a bleak report on climate change. The summary states that humans are “very likely” to blame for global warming. Sadly, this comes as no surprise. Unless your name is George Bush. Or you’re a staunch Christian who believes global warming is all part of god’s plan, so you can keep sitting on your lazy ass and do nothing until the end of days. (Hey, even Punxsutawny Phil knows the Earth is getting warmer.)

And on the heels of the IPCC’s report, Oliver Tickell over at BBC News drafted an interesting recommendation for a Kyoto 2 Protocol, since he felt the first proved to be quite ineffectual. I won’t argue about the effectiveness of the Kyoto Protocol, after all, any attention to the real issue of climate change is good, but Tickell’s recommendations sure do sound like it’s the way to go.

Filed by Maria in environment