Global warming happens: but is it “catastrophic”?

Reuters : Likely headlines predicting a global warming “catastrophe”, “disaster” or “cataclysm” after a U.N. report due on Friday risk sapping public willingness to act by making the problem seem too big to tackle, some experts say.The world’s leading climate scientists, meeting in Brussels, are set to warn of more hunger in Africa, rising seas, species extinctions and a melting of Himalayan glaciers in the April 6 report about the regional impacts of climate change.But the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), grouping 2,500 scientists, does not use words to sum up the forecasts -- unlike some politicians or headline writers who describe it as a “crisis”, “terrifying” or “Armageddon”."I’m a bit preoccupied that the media, having contributed to every day making another doomsday news headline, then in six weeks time will declare it hysteria and move on,” said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program.