Terms of debate

The debate between alarmists and realists is not about whether “climate change is real” (it is), or about whether the Earth has warmed during the past century (it has), or even whether humans are a cause of recent warming (we likely are). Alarmists and realists largely agree on those topics. The debate between alarmists and skeptics is whether our modest, recent warming is likely to morph into rapid, devastating warming that requires immediate, substantial government action to avert a climate crisis. Surveys of scientists show only a minority of scientists are very worried about such a scenario happening.