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How to Keep Track of Climate Change

from the Christian Science Monitor

It's a vexing problem - how to keep the public and policymakers informed and engaged on what many scientists say is the primary long-term challenge to humanity's well-being: global warming.

You could invite folks to burrow into the most recent 998-page climate-change opus by 620 leading scientists and editors. Or, for lighter reading, peruse the 34-page "frequently asked questions" primer on that same 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

But to capture public attention while avoiding the need for a PhD on sea-ice thickness, glacier melt rates, and carbon dioxide concentrations, you could just put that data into a single index that tracks the pulse of climate change as it happens.