You probably are correct, but we still need to do something to REDUCE CO2, not solely because of the greenhouse effect, but because acidification of the oceans (and any other large body of water, for that matter) is, not "will," reducing everything from plankton to coral reefs. The whole ecology of the ocean on which we depend is based on plankton be the primary source of nutrition and reefs being one of the primary sites of fish reproduction.

I absolutely agree we need to reduce CO2. Right now, we are in the situation of a car speeding toward a brick wall. We've waited too long to avoid the wall by hitting the brakes. We're going to hit it. The question now is, do we keep pushing our foot down on the accelerator, building up speed for the impending crash, or do we let up on the gas and start hitting the brake, to keep the crash survivable? So far, deniers say we should keep accelerating, because they believe the wall is a hoax created by scientists and liberals, and besides, we've hit the wall many times before. So yes, we definitely need to reduce CO2 emissions as soon as possible to keep us from hitting the wall so hard that we kill ourselves. However, since we know we can't keep from hitting the wall, we need to prepare for the aftermath of the crash, and very little is being said or done about that. What do we do when parts of the earth that are currently vast producers of food, like the Midwest, become too hot and dry to be viable breadbaskets? What do we do when large parts of the earth's surface become uninhabitable to humans, due to rising sea levels and increasingly severe weather? Now is the time to begin to deal with those issues, because nothing we can do will stop those things from happening.

Deniers will deny the reports no matter when they come out, no matter how many climate scientists agree about the causes of climate change. They are no different than Birthers, with the same fanatical drive to ignore facts, except that Birthers don't have the same kind of money as climate change deniers have. They won't look at the fact that record highs now greatly outnumber record lows, which is what you expect when the climate is warming. They won't look at the fact that nightly low temps are actually rising even faster than daily high temps, yet another consequence of global warming. And most of all, they will continue to say that the earth has gone through warming like this in the past, totally ignoring the fact that it has never warmed this much this quickly in the past few million years. Logic and facts are completely wasted on those folks.

I'm not talking about Climate Deniers. I'm talking about people who are apathetic because they don't think it's a Big Deal.

For example: Let's look at Climate Deniers like we look at Racists.

The tipping point in the Civil Rights movement came when average, ordinary people who didn't consider themselves particularly politically active learned to reject racism because they couldn't ignore the ugly truth of what was happening anymore. And as the number of people who realized that Civil Rights were not some left-wing niche cause surrounded the people who believed in segregation, it made them politically irrelevant. We got the Civil Rights Act, people realized that the N-Word is not acceptable for polite society, and eventually we voted an African American in to the highest office in the land. Yeah, we still have Racists, and there are still battles to fight and maintain, but your Average Joe Voter is on our side on this one, even if they're fuzzy on the details.

Average, Ordinary citizens tend to filter news and scientific findings through their own experience. So if they're like me and keeping their house around 55F through the winter because the cost of heating their homes is prohibitively expensive, learning at that particular time that last year was "the hottest on record" doesn't push them to a tipping point. If we held on to that information and said "hey, did you know 2012 was the hottest year on record, and 2013 is on track to give it a run for its money" when people are getting a little worried that it's 90F in Boston in early April, it's going to have a little more impact.

When you tell people "hey the earth is warming up" when they're cold and want to be warmer, you can't expect that they're going to get up in arms about that, even if they're not a Climate Denier.

Fair point.

Never underestimate the stupidity of average people in large groups. People tend to not understand (or willfully misunderstand) moderately complex ideas that require them to put forth moderate effort, unless they have an immediate and compelling reason to which they can relate. Therefore, I actually agree with your idea - put the report out into the public when it will resonate with the masses. Visceral reaction is by far more likely to cause actual change than cerebral discussion. Point out the warming trend at the begining of summer, and give them actual their-life-based information/reasoning so that they can relate to the information. You can even relate it to their a/c costs: "it cost you $300/mo last July to cool your house. This year it will be at least $350. If this continues, next year will be over $400."

Unless people become actually engaged in the information and join the discussion, then it really doesn't matter how many scientists agree with who. Nothing will change.

"Never underestimate the stupidity of average people in large groups."

I haven't seen an actual source for either version of this statement attributed to H. L. Mencken

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste/intelligence of the American public."

Nonetheless, either version is uncomfortably close to being literally true.

My roses are blooming already, about 3 months early.

Dead by May.

Jes, the difference between climate and weather is immense. Yes, weather forecasters have an uneven record for predicting weather, because it is short-term variability that relies on so many factors. Climate, on the other hand, is based on historical records of many types, from satellite observations, to weather station records, to tree rings, to ice cores, to sediment cores, to fossils. In other words, it gives us an excellent set of overlapping records to tell us what happened in the past. We can now compare that to what we see in recent years, and it shows that the current warming trend is completely unprecedented from anything seen in past records, both in magnitude and speed. Using the past warmings, we can predict the effects the current warming will have on the planet. If we were just talking about one or two isolated warm years, like you too, I would be skeptical. Unfortunately, the 10 warmest years in the current weather record came in the past 15 years, which is far too much to be a coincidence. Studies of the changing carbon in the air also show an isotope of carbon that only comes from burning fossil fuels. What's the worst that happens if we go "overboard", as you put it, in reducing carbon emissions? It costs us some money. What happens if we just ignore the problem, as climate deniers say we should do? We die, pure and simple. Saving all that money does you no good if you are too dead to spend it.

Uffdaguy,

The deniers, whether overt or covert, obviously do not care about what will happen to the human race in the long run.

jes -- The dust bowl is a better example of climate change than you know. Everyone thinks the dust bowl was just "oh, it got really dry in Oklahoma and all the topsoil blew away." And they shrug their shoulders and mumble something about Grapes of Wrath.

In fact, the dust bowl was actually possible because of HUMANS SCREWING UP THE ENVIRONMENT. Yes, the drought didn't help, but that soil would have stayed where it was if human farmers hadn't ripped up huge swaths of the sedge grass that helped anchor the soil into place, and stressed the water tables to where they couldn't service their intended region. Had we not screwed up the delicate environmental balance of the American prairie, Oklahoma would have just suffered a regular ol' drought instead of losing all of its topsoil.

My grandfather -- an Okie -- dedicated his life to land and water management after the dust bowl, which he lived through. It was due to the hard work of people like him understanding the water tables, aquifers and erosion patterns of the American West that brought that region back from their man made environmental disaster that was not some shoulder-shrugging "oh it just got really dry" event that was resolved when it finally rained. Santa didn't fix this one, humans getting certain facts through their thick skulls did. And now that the people who lived through the dust bowl and learned that lesson are dying out, it looks like we're setting up to make the exact same mistake in history: Northwestern Oklahoma was never supposed to be agricultural land -- it was supposed to be dry prairie land so that the water table would never have to be taxed extending out to arid regions, and yet as my family still in the region tells it, the panhandle is now groaning under the weight of agribusiness. Another Dustbowl is coming, because humans don't have the courage to admit that that they willfully ignore history's lessons in favor of short-term expediency.

Or you could just take each day's weather as a special snowflake that is unrelated to anything else until we're all truly f'ed.

Would those be "Daisy dukes"?

Take a couple of space shuttle loads at 4 tons a load of aluminum foil into space, spread it out and deflect sunlight as needed. Impregnate with argon or ozone and deflect solar flares too? Obviously stopgap. But,, we need to better "manage" our solar system anyways..

When it's all said and done killing off our fisheries will probably be in the top 3 stupid things humanity did.

I would just like to note that it is January in Washington, D.C. When I was a kid, you were lucky to get temperatures much above freezing in January. This weekend, the weather reports are for 60 degree weather.

If we don't do something about this, and do something soon, we're toast.