9.4 What can I conclude from this evidence?
I hope you are able to agree with the IPCC that:
warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level
and with the Royal Society of London that:
Our scientific understanding of climate change is sufficiently sound to make us highly confident that greenhouse gas emissions are causing global warming. Science moves forward by challenge and debate and this will continue. However, none of the current criticisms of climate science, nor the alternative explanations of global warming are well enough founded to make not taking any action the wise choice. The science clearly points to the need for nations to take urgent steps to cut greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, as much and as fast as possible, to reduce the more severe aspects of climate change. We must also prepare for the impacts of climate change, some of which are already inevitable.
I also hope that you agree that urgent action is required to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases markedly, but that the response should not be based on hyperbole and alarmist media coverage that distorts the scientific basis for our changing climate. The likely change arising from recent and current emissions even when stated conservatively, by discounting the likelihood of more extreme events or rapid positive feedbacks, is more than alarming enough. Responding to the science of climate change is very much a social and political process; as individuals, scientists are very much part of those processes.
9.3 So why are some scientists sceptical about climate change?