Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

NARRAGANSETT -- U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse heard some dire predictions about climate change and sea level rise this morning during a special "field briefing" of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography.

An overflow crowd of hundreds packed an auditorium to hear from a panel that included Kate Moran, director of the Marine Geomechanics Laboratory at GSO; Grover Fugate, executive director of the state Coastal Resources Management Council; Jon C. Boothroyd, state geologist and a URI geology professor; John Torgan, Baykeeper at Save The Bay; and Caroly Shumway, director of conservation science at The Nature Conservancy.

Moran said that melting ice and sea level rise observed by scientists are worse than every predictive model. "We (scientists) all agree that increased greenhouse gases are causing global warming. And the amount of increases over a short period of time are startling."

Whitehouse said he thinks the world is in an "ominous situation," and he wondered how to convince entrenched and often wealthy skeptics and doubters in Washington.

-- Journal environment writer Peter B. Lord

 Tags  environment Narragansett Sheldon Whitehouse

Comments

Mike D said:

GLOBAL WARMING FROM HUMAN ACTIVITY? I DON'T THINK SO! THERE IS TO MUCH DATA RE: GLOBAL COOLING AND WARMING PRIOR TO THE INDUSTRIAL AGE...MAYBE, IT WAS ALL THAT DINOSAUR FLATULENCE!
NO SCIENCE IS AVAILABLE TO PROVE THE INPUT FROM MAN'S ACTIVITY.

Link | August 21, 2008 2:01 PM
Report Abuse

---

Another Skeptic said:

Aren't there more important things for Whitehouse to do than convince skeptics of something he doesn't even have enough evidence of...really!?

Link | August 22, 2008 12:55 PM
Report Abuse

---

Leave a comment

Please be civil. Vicious comments, personal attacks and profanity won't be published. Name and email are required; email address will not publish.

Name:

Email:

URL:  

Remember personal info?

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.