Our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change. The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year [2011] can each be attributed to climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.

...99 percent confident that the world really was getting warmer and that there was a high degree of probability that it was due to human-made greenhouse gases.

What we are doing to the future of our children, and the other species on the planet, is a clear moral issue.

A level of no more than 350 ppm is still feasible, with the help of reforestation and improved agricultural practices, but just barely - time is running out.

Until the public demands otherwise, the policy makers will continue to serve their financiers.

The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today-which is what we expect later this century-sea levels were 25m higher. So that is what we can look forward to if we don't act soon.

Our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change. The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year [2011] can each be attributed to climate change. The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills.