Enviro Warrior - Wake up and smell the Homus ... then tread lightly upon the planet.

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level."

"Eleven of the last twelve years (1995-2006) rank among the 12 warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850)."

"The linear warming trend over the last 50 years . . . is nearly twice that for the last 100 years."

"Observations since 1961 show that average temperature of the global ocean has increased to depths of at least 3000 m and that the ocean has been absorbing more than 80 percent of the heat added to the climate system. Such warming causes seawater to expand, contributing to sea level rise."

"Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined on average in both hemispheres. Widespread decreases in glaciers and ice caps have contributed to sea level rise."

"Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were . . . higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years."

"Global climate change of the past fifty years . . . is not due to known natural causes alone."

"Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is . . . due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations."

"The report says that continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system . . . larger than those observed during the 20th century."

"Hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent."

"Anthropogenic forcing . . . [has] contributed to changes in wind patterns, affecting extra-tropical storm tracks and temperature patterns in both hemispheres."

"Future tropical cyclones (typhoons and hurricanes) will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and more heavy precipitation."

Money insentives of $10,000, Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

However, the IPCC UN report was written by international experts and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science in modern history. It underpins international negotiations on new emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft last year and invited to comment.

Climate scientists described this move to undermine the report as an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global warming. It is unanimously agreed that it is a desperate attempt by an organisation to distort science for political aims.

Supreme Court stepped gingerly into the national debate over global warming, asking how much harm would occur if the Environmental Protection Agency continued its refusal to regulate greenhouse gases from new vehicles.

In the first case about global warming to reach the high court, a lawyer for 12 states and 13 environmental groups pressed the justices to make the government act, saying the country faces grave environmental harm.

Opening up an hour of arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia asked, "When is the predicted cataclysm?''

Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that regulating carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles addresses just one aspect of an issue of global dimensions.

The argument by those pushing for EPA action on vehicle emissions might or might not be valid, but it "assumes everything else is going to remain constant.

Twelve states, mainly along the nation's Atlantic and Pacific coasts, three cities, a U.S. territory and 13 environmental groups are arguing that the EPA ignored the clear language of the Clean Air Act. Under the 1970 law, carbon dioxide is an air pollutant that threatens public health and the EPA must regulate it, they said.

Carbon dioxide is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. It is the principal "greenhouse'' gas that many scientists believe is flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, leading to the current warming cycle of the Earth and widespread ecological changes.

One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient cars I guess, or we could go back to the horse and buggy?

Several justices questioned whether the states and environmental groups have met their legal burden to show they will be harmed by continued EPA inaction. Petitioners to courts must meet that threshold before the merits of a case may be addressed.

The Bush administration argued in court papers that the EPA lacks the power to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Even if it had such authority, the EPA still would not use it at this point because of uncertainty surrounding the issue of global warming, the administration said.

Global climate change is "a controversial phenomenon that is far from fully understood or defined,'' trade associations for car and truck makers and automobile dealers said in a court filing signed by former Solicitors General Theodore Olson and Kenneth Starr. They backed the administration position.