U.N. Climate Change Report with Scary Scenarios
WHITFIELD: In New Mexico, this is not a movie but real life. You're seeing drama on the rails. A passenger train rushes head long, not away from, but into a blazing wildfire just like you saw right there. High winds whipped the flames across brush land and on to those tracks. Well, railroad officials say the conductor was aware of the fire but an emergency stop might have put the train in the mid of the flames and in greater danger. Well, the strongest warning yet from the United Nations about the humans causes of global warming and what it might mean for survival. The report predicts everything from monster storms and wildfires to gross famine. Our own meteorologist Rob Marciano shakes out some of the details.</s>ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): February's report from a United Nations panel on global climate change was just the tip of the iceberg. It concluded that global warming is real. It's getting worse and that human activity is driving it. And a follow up released Friday in Brussels offers new details on the devastating effects climate change will likely bring to bear on humans, animals, and the environment.</s>MARTIN PARRY, IPCC CO-CHAIRMAN: We're no longer arm-waving with models that this may happen. This is what we call empirical information on the ground. We can measure it.</s>MARCIANO: Perhaps the most troubling finding is that by the end of the century, floods will permanently displace hundreds of millions of people as low-lying coastal areas are swallowed up by rising sea levels.</s>ROBERT CORELL, CLIMATE SCIENTIST: With a meter or two of sea level rise, we're likely to see hundreds of millions of what we are calling environmental refugees, people who no longer can live where they have lived for maybe thousands of years.</s>MARCIANO: The report predicts that where it's wet and hot, insect-borne diseases such as malaria will explode. Where it's dry, it's likely to become much drier. And some water supplies will vanish, notably the glaciers and the Himalayas, the key water source for hundreds of millions of Asians. And the deserts will expand.</s>JAMES HANSEN, EARTH SCIENTIST: Already we're beginning to see in the western United States that it is becoming drier and hotter. And if we go down the path of business as usual, we can expect basically permanent drought in the western United States.</s>MARCIANO: Another grim finding is that the world will see a spike in endangered species with a wave of extinction from coral reefs to polar bears.</s>CORELL: Our study in the Arctic suggested that polar bear is on its way to extinction during this century in the most likelihood. And the reason for that is that they live on the ice. They get their food off the ice. They snatch the seals through small air holes. And now most of that ice is no longer there and will disappear.</s>MARCIANO (on-camera): Next month another key section of the report will be released. And it's going to provide some much-needed guidance as to what we humans can do to stop global warming. And even scientists who fear the worst say it's not too late to avoid some of these nightmare scenarios. Rob Marciano, CNN.</s>WHITFIELD: And now, how much can one man get away with? Don Imus in hot water again. We'll tell you what he said and who he offended. And Alberto Gonzales loses one more top member of his Justice Department, but is the top man about to topple? We'll get a live report. You're watching CNN, the most trusted name in news.