The year 2010 was the warmest year on record,
according to the World Meteorological Organization. The areas hit the hardest
by the increase were the Arctic, Africa and southern and western Asia.
The global temperature average in 2010 was .53
degree Celsius (.95 degree Fahrenheit) above the 1961 to 1990 mean, which is
used for comparison purposes.
At the same time, northern Europe and Australia
saw temperatures significantly cooler than average with “abnormally
cold” conditions.
The year also saw many extreme weather events,
including Russia’s heat wave and floods in Pakistan.
“Self-proclaimed climate change ‘sceptics’
may still try to claim that global warming stopped in 1998, but they cannot
explain away the fact that nine of the 10 warmest years on record have all
occurred since 2000,’ said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate
Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.” (AFP, Jan. 20)
Climate change is caused by carbon emissions,
themselves a product of out-of-control capitalist industrial development.
