The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) announced they are gathering the world's top scientists, to advance knowledge about climate change. As part of this effort, members of the group will take part in public speaking engagements, and share ideas among the group. A new interactive website is also planned for the public to keep up with progress on the project.
The meeting of minds will not only announce their collective belief that climate change is occurring, but they will also strive to develop solutions.
A new report, titled What We Know, discusses the climate science as currently understood. The importance of high-risk scenarios is highlighted.
"Even among members of the broader public who already know about the evidence for climate change and what is causing it, some do not know the degree to which many climate scientists are concerned about the risks of possibly rapid and abrupt climate change," James McCarthy of Harvard University said.
One goal of the gathering will be to show that scientists are nearly united in their opinion on the effects of global warming. In the two decades from 1991 to 2011, 97 percent of the scientific papers published on the subject support the idea that man-made climate change is real.
Recent polls have shown Americans believe scientists are divided on the issue of global warming. Polls conducted in 2013 show that just 42 percent think most scientists believe in climate change. One-third of the respondents said there was "a lot" of disagreement about rising temperatures within the scientific community. Gallup recently conducted a poll showing climate change ranks 14th among 15 concerns facing Americans. Race relations was the only issue that Americans were less concerned about than climate change.
"We believe we have an obligation to inform the public and policymakers about what science is showing about any issue in modern life, and climate is a particularly pressing one. As the voice of the scientific community, we need to share what we know and bring policymakers to the table to discuss how to deal with the issue," Alan Leshner, CEO of the AAAS, said in a statement.
The report is centered on three main ideas. That climate change is real, we are at risk of pushing the environment toward disaster, and that early action is preferable to waiting to act.
What We Know was authored by a team of researchers from around the world. They were led by Mario Molina, a chemistry professor at the University of California, biologist Diana Wall of Colorado State University, and Harvard's Jame McCarthy.
