The Climate Report: The National Climate Assessment

Even as the president uses snowstorms to mock the science of climate change, the scientists working for his government quietly do their work, producing a report buried on that most deadly of news days, the Friday after Thanksgiving, but published now by Melville House. It contains few surprises for anyone paying attention and, to be honest, is mostly written, despite the full-color graphs and maps, in a mind-numbing committee-ese. But suddenly, when you reach Appendix 5, a 60-page FAQ at the end of the book (available, like the rest of the report, online as well), you have laid before you, in the clearest, least histrionic language, explanations of what is happening, why the science is so sure, and what can still be done. The language is reassuring; the facts are not.