WHAT WE KNOW

THE REALITY, RISKS AND RESPONSE TO CLIMATE CHANGE

The overwhelming evidence of human-caused climate change documents both current impacts with significant costs and extraordinary future risks to society and natural systems. The scientific community has convened conferences, published reports, spoken out at forums and proclaimed, through statements by virtually every national scientific academy and relevant major scientific organization-including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) - that climate change puts the well-being of people of all nations at risk. Surveys show that many Americans think climate change is still a topic of significant scientific disagreement.

Thus, it is important and increasingly urgent for the public to know there is now a high degree of agreement among climate scientists that human - caused climate change is real. Moreover, while the public is becoming aware that climate change is increasing the likelihood of certain local disasters, many people do not yet understand that there is a small, but real chance of abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts on people in the United States and around the world.

The sooner we act, the lower the risk and cost. The longer we wait to respond, the more the risks of climate change will increase. Conversely, the sooner we take action, the more options we will have to reduce risk and limit the human and economic cost of climate change....

See the full report here

The AAAS Climate Science Panel

Mario Molina (Chair)
University of California, San Diego and Scripps Institution of Oceanography

James McCarthy
(Co-chair)
Harvard University

Diana Wall
(Co-chair)
Colorado State University

Richard Alley
Pennsylvania State University

Kim Cobb
Georgia Institute of Technology

Julia Cole
University of Arizona

Sarah Das
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Noah Diffenbaugh
Stanford University

Kerry Emanuel
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Howard Frumkin
University of Washington

Katharine Hayhoe
Texas Tech University

Camille Parmesan
University of Texas, Austin and University of Plymouth, UK

Marshall Shepherd
University of Georgia