New Climate Report Suggests Major Changes

By Amy Lester, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY - A new study predicts major changes to the earth's climate, including average temperatures that could climb by as much as 13 degrees by the year 2090.

According to the White House's new climate change report, global warming is here and people are responsible for causing it.

Read the full Climate Change report.

"It's not just a problem for the future. We're beginning to see its impacts in our daily lives," said Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

The report reveals that water levels have plummeted and temperatures have increased because of carbon dioxide emissions. It also warns that in the future, our area will get even hotter and spring rainfall could drop by about 40 percent.

"Humans are responsible for the changes we are seeing and our actions now will determine the extent of future change and the severity of the impacts," Lubchenco said.

But not everyone agrees with the report, including NEWS 9's Director of Meteorology Gary England.

"This new study just released by the government is like a bad ‘B' movie. It's chaos. It's fear mongering," England said.

He said there is a reason why the government issued the report. It's all about politics.

"It's an effort to scare the public into supporting the climate bill. That's exactly what it is. Scare the kids, scare the mommas and make everyone think we're going to die," England said.

The climate bill would cap carbon dioxide emissions. Critics of this said that will cause a drastic spike in gas and energy prices. The reports called for cutting pollution and emissions in a way to reduce any major climate changes.

U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) released a statement on the climate change study:

"That the federal bureaucracy in Washington has produced yet another alarmist report on global warming is nothing new. It's also no surprise that such a report was released just in time for the House vote on Waxman-Markey. What's clear is that despite millions of dollars spent on alarmist advertising, the American public remains rightly skeptical of the so-called ‘consensus' on global warming. I would suggest that, given a little time, the world's preeminent scientists will quickly and thoroughly debunk this study. As has been clearly demonstrated by the Senate Minority report of over 700 scientists questioning global warming hysteria, the debate on the science remains wide open."