Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were informative enough. Humans are messing with climate and will, sooner or later, get burned if they keep it up. But just how urgent is this global warming business? IPCC wasn't at all clear on that, at least not in its summary reports. In the absence of forthright guidance from the scientific community, news about melting ice and starving polar bears has stoked the public climate frenzy of the past couple of years. Climate researchers, on the other hand, prefer science to headlines when considering just how imminent the coming climate crunch might be. With a chance to digest the detailed IPCC products that are now available, many scientists are more convinced than ever that immediate action is required. The time to start "is right now," says climate modeler Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. "We can't wait any longer."
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