Newsflash: Global Warming is Real

I'm happy to say I didn't fall asleep during Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth. I'm just enough of a geek to be engaged in what is essentially a spiffed-up climate lecture. Entertainment value aside, the message of the film is important for everyone on this planet to hear. Global warming is real, it's happening, and we should do something about it.

The AP contacted 100 of the world's top climate researchers about the film. Only 19 had seen it, but they all agree: Gore gets the science right on the major points.

The most recent proof can be found in this exciting report by the National Academy of Sciences: Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years.

Okay, its dry charts and facts aren't exactly a thrilling read. So let me point you to the important conclusions:

• The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on icecaps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years.

• The committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium.

• Surface temperature reconstructions for periods prior to the industrial era are only one of multiple lines of evidence supporting the conclusion that climatic warming is occurring in response to human activities.

Reasonable people can debate the course of action we should take, given this information. But anyone (like President Bush) claiming there's a debate over global warming and its causes cannot be taken seriously. But the threat they pose to our planet and future generations should be taken seriously, and we can't let their moral fogginess get in the way of clear scientific evidence.