Bush Report on Global Climate Change

A report requested by the Bush administration on global climate change was released by a committee of the National Academies’ National Research Council on June 6, 2001. The report summed up science’s current understanding of climate change by confirming that greenhouse gases are accumulating in the earth’s atmosphere and causing surface temperatures to rise. This position supports the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). While the committee acknowledged that scientists can’t say precisely how much of the rise is from human activities, it did predict that ongoing greenhouse gas emissions will continue the warming. The committee was made up of 11 of the nation’s top climate scientists. The report is available online at books.nap.edu/html/climatechange/.