When I was in university the question was not so much if climate change is happening, but to what extent it's a result of modern human activity. That question is a step closer to being answered.
"Very likely" is how 2000 of the worlds best scientists described the probability that climate change is driven by the burning of fossil fuels in a new UN IPPC report.
In the last report those scientists used the word "likely". In that 2001 report there were a few dozen scientists who wrote in an exclaimer they had reservations about the report's conclusions but they signed anyway. My skeptical economics professor pointed to that as proof that even scientists were divided on global warming. As a science major I remember thinking how amazing it was that 1900+ scientists actually got together and agreed on anything.
One of the things I learned that year is that science is one of the arts. All the way from experimental design to interpretation of the reults lends itself to interpretation, no matter how tight an experiment there is. But after yesterday, the global warming sceptic's objectivity will be seriously questioned.
The next difficult question people will debate is what to do about global warming.. do I sence an Al Gore comeback?
CBC article here
