News & Views item

Nine Views on the Anthropogenic Effect on Climate Change. (February 26, 2007)

Following the publication of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the journal Nature published a "Special Report" which consists of ten articles as well as nine short quotes.

Here we list the quotes together with the names of those who made them -- but not matched.

What They're Saying

Which of Them Said It?

1. “This may be remembered as the day the question mark was removed from whether human activity has anything to do with climate change.”

2. “Now is not the time for half measures. It is the time for a revolution.”

3. “The question is, what can we do now? There’s very little we can do about arresting the process.”

4. “This should compel all of us towards action rather than the paralysis of fear.”

5. “Now it’s time for us — the policymakers — to do our jobs.”

6. “This is a group of climate experts attempting to reach a scientific consensus. It doesn’t commit governments to any course of action.”

7. “For sure, humans cause global warming!”

8. “Let’s be realistic. You can only run power stations in a modern Western economy on fossil fuel, or, in time, nuclear power.”

9. “Those who continue to ignore the threat will be doing the greatest disservice imaginable to current and future generations.”

a. Anote Tong, president of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati

b. French president Jacques Chirac

c. Headline from China’s Xinhua news agency

d. Australian prime minister John Howard, whose country has not ratified the Kyoto protocol

e. Marthinus van Schalkwyk, environmental affairs minister for South Africa

f. Achim Steiner, head of the United Nations Environment Programme

g. Pradipto Ghosh, senior official at India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests

h. Martin Rees, president of the United Kingdom’s Royal Society

i. Bart Gordon, Democratic Congressman from Tennessee and chair of the US House Committee on Science

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