(Picture from Money Times)

A damning global warming report prepared by a respected economist was released in the UK today warning that climate change will trim 5-20% from global wealth over the next century. According to this report former VP Al Gore will advise the British government on global warming.

From UPI:

Britain's Stern report may be the most influential piece of work on a global scale since the United Nations charter. This detailed 700-page survey on the implications for governments of global warming from one of the high priests of the British policy establishment has the potential to change almost everything.

Published Monday with its grim warning that climate change is likely to hit the global economy as hard as the Great Depression, the report from Sir Nicholas Stern comes hard on the heels of former Vice President Al Gore's film on the same theme, "An Inconvenient Truth." But whereas Gore was speaking to a global public (and from the Cannes film festival to the U.S. box office and the next Oscars and across the world it is clear that people are listening), Stern speaks to statesman and officials, policy-makers and this with the power to do something about it.

"The scientific evidence of global warming is overwhelming and it is clear that the consequences will literally be disastrous," Prime Minister Tony Blair commented Monday. "We cannot afford to wait. This disaster is not set to happen in some science fiction future many years ahead, but in our lifetime."

See our 'Pay Now or Pay Later' post from a few days ago along similar lines.

From the blogs, check out Think Progress, News Breaks, The McCluskey Blog, Mike Watkins, and TreeHugger.