Why Climate Scientists Are So Perturbed

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/why-climate-scientists-are-so-perturbed/

A recent report from the ClimateWorks Foundation in San Francisco does the best job I have seen of explaining, in layman's terms, why scientists keep pressing the issue. In essence, society has put off the task of reducing carbon dioxide and other emissions for so long that it is on the verge of running out of time, the report argues. The document, written by Hal Harvey and Sonia Aggarwal, calculates that stabilizing the gases at a level low enough to avert severe damage to the planet will require that emissions peak by 2020 and then begin falling briskly — and no set of policies in place today is likely to cause that to happen.