Citizen’s Climate Briefing - Climate dialogues Seattle

Citizen’s Climate BriefingTemperature ChartFIG 1: This graph shows both historical and projected between multiple estimates. (Note that temperatures are temperatures for the time period 700 – 2100 AD. The relative to the 1961-1990 average, not to the 1980-1999 projection in orange is for a high emissions scenario, and average used in the rest of the guide.) Source: IPCC 4AR in gold is for a low emissions scenario. The historical data WG I, Chapter 6, Figure 6.10 and Chapter 10, Figure 10.26 is blurred to indicate the uncertainty about the exact (A1F1 and B1 scenarios).values, with darker values indicating better agreement Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works License 3.0 October 2007 Climate Dialogues / Seattlepage Climate Choices The Citizen’s Climate BriefingIntroductionThis briefing is divided in four sections:1. What’s happening to the climate?2. How serious are the impacts and risks?3. What are the solutions?4. What are our choices?At the outset, it’s helpful to preview the choices that you’ll be considering. These choices do not ask you about technology (for example, should we build more nuclear plants?) or policy (for example, should we have a cap-and-trade system?). They ask a more fundamental question: How should we balance the risks of climate change against the costs of addressing it? The choices are presented as four options:1. Minimize cost: voluntary actions only.2. Gradual steps: modest mandatory ...