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Following the publication of the ‘Copenhagen Diagnosis', leading Danish scientists and researchers have warned of avoiding doomsday prophecies. The Copenhagen Diagnosis is a document written by prominent scientists that predicts a sea level rise of up to 2 meters by 2100. Among the authors of the report were many scientists involved in the United Nations' Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC are influential in international climate negotiations. The new report contains warnings that if emissions continue to grow in a business-as-usual scenario, global sea levels could rise by 1 meter, but possible even 2 meters by year 2100. Some scientists are afraid that these statements may lead to climate hysteria. Among them is Dorthe Dahl Jensen, one of the leading ice researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Dahl Jensen says that doomsday rhetoric should be avoided. ‘Stop talking about doomsday. The Earth is absolutely not sinking, nor are the polar bears, because the Earth has previously been much warmer. The only thing that is threatened is our lifestyle,' she said.
Dahl Jensen said that she is frustrated that currently climate change is being blamed for all the problems in the world, from animals dying out to people getting sick. ‘The debate has almost taken on a religious quality'. Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen, head of research at the Danish Meteorological Institute but also one of the authors of the last three IPCC reports, also warned against hysteria. He explained that the UN's environmental program UNEP had already announced similar sea level rise predictions in September 2009, so the current report's content is not completely new.
Source: Danish government
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