Climate Munich?

More emerges on how the pols softened the IPCC climate crisis report. From AP:

"There was no split in the science — they were all mad," said John Coequyt, who observed the closed-door negotiations for the environmental group Greenpeace.

In the past, scientists at these meetings felt that their warnings were conveyed, albeit slightly edited down. But several of them left Friday with the sense that they had lost control of their document. At one point, NASA's Cynthia Rosenzweig filed a formal protest and left the building, only to return, make peace and talk in positive tones. Others talked about abandoning the process altogether.

One weapon the diplomats used was endless talking. At one point, the translators had to be sent home because the deliberations were over budget.

The result: A comparison of the original document, written by scientists, and the finished paper showed major reductions in forecasts for hunger and flooding victims. Instead of "hundreds of millions" of potential flood victims, the report said "many millions." A key mention of up to 120 million people at risk of hunger because of global warming was eliminated.

All of this will be in the technical report issued by the scientists themselves. According to the AP's viewing of the technical summary not included in what's already been released:

• "More than one sixth of the world population live in glacier- or snowmelt-fed river basins and will be affected by decrease of water volume." And depending on how much fossil fuels are burned in the future, "262-983 million people are likely to move into the water stressed-category" by 2050.

• Global warming could increase the number of hungry in the world in 2080 by anywhere between 140 million and 1 billion, depending on how much greenhouse gas is emitted into the air over the next few decades.

• "Overall a 2 to 3 fold increase of population to be flooded is expected by 2080."

• Malaria, diarrhea diseases, dengue fever, tick-borne diseases, heat-related deaths will all rise with global warming. But in the United Kingdom, the drop in cold-related deaths will be bigger than the increase in heatstroke related deaths.

• In eastern North America, depending on fossil fuel emissions, smog will increase and there would be a 4.5 percent increase in smog-related deaths.

• Because global warming will hurt the poor more, there will be more "social equity" concerns and pressure for governments to do more.

Whether these stark conclusions to what many view as an already unbearably stark report would have changed the generally weak media coverage is debatable. The report was barely mentioned on TV news channels on Friday. They had more important things to talk about.