Maybe climate change is a threat, and maybe climate change has been tarted up by climatologists trolling for research grant cash. It doesn't matter.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Climate change - for so long an abstract concern for an academic few - is no longer so abstract. Even the Bush administration's Climate Change Science Programme reports 'clear evidence of human influences on the climate system.'
It should simply be an empirical matter whether the climate is changing or not and whether we're responsible. But the various sides of the debate have now become so tribal that it's no longer a matter of changing our views as more information comes in.
I'm not as convinced as a lot of people are that man-made climate change is the threat they think it is.
One thing we do know about the threat of climate change is that the cost of adjustment only grows the longer it's left unaddressed.
Once you start to look into the guts of climate change you find that just about every scientific institution in the world is conducting research on the issue.
Around the world, climate change is an existential threat - but if we harness the opportunities inherent in addressing climate change, we can reap enormous economic benefits.
We can look back through ice-core data and see over 800,000 years, relationships between carbon dioxide and the temperature of the world. So those people who deny the importance of climate change are just wasting their time. They're also being diversionary because if we don't act the risks are enormous.
If you look at all the serious scientists in the world, there is no big disagreement on the basics of this... it would be absolute lunacy to act as if climate change is not occurring.
Climate change is also clearly a matter of huge interest and concern for the scientific community.
As this body of knowledge has evolved, a much more critical job for researchers and scientists has evolved into explaining and educating policy makers and the public to the risks of global warming and the possible consequences of action or of no action.