I'm constantly reminded of the cartoon where a heckler is standing up during a Climate Change presentation, yelling, "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"

I'm a big believer in the scientific method. I think wherever possible we should gather evidence to confirm or deny our hypothesis. But sometimes we have to make decisions without time for all the facts, all the calculations to come in. You could stand there in the street as a car careens toward you, slide rule in hand, being absolutely sure the car will collide with you before finally stepping out of the way. But, of course that's ridiculous.

So, the fear is that making the necessary changes to society would be far too disruptive, too expensive, resulting in ultimately more death and devastation than what Climate Change may or may not bring.

That's quite a gamble. We seem totally fine spending trillions of dollars on other experiments [cough] tax cuts [cough]. We go to war, sacrificing lives and national treasure on uncertain outcomes, on shaky premises, and on and on. Why, with this one issue, are we so reluctant to make the leap with a significant scientific consensus around the issue?