Now that everyone is talking about climate change, there are lots of different opinions and ideas out there. This can make it seem like people don't agree about what's going on.

The truth is that almost all scientists, especially ones who are experts on the Earth's atmosphere, agree that the world has been getting warmer. They also agree that it will continue to warm up for years to come and that human activity has a lot to do with this.

Since 1988 a special group of scientists have been looking at the evidence for climate change. The group is called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the IPCC for short. There are over 2,000 scientists and other experts on the IPCC.  Eight of them have won a Nobel Prize for their work, so you can see they really are the experts.

These scientists generally agree that the warming that we're experiencing can't be down to natural variation alone, and that part of it is due to human activities such as burning, coal, oil and gas.  Destroying forests to make garden furniture or to grow crops is also an important factor.  The scientists agree that we need to act together to make sure that the warming creates as little harm as possible in the future.

The IPCC strongly agree that the evidence for man-made climate change is so strong that it can't be argued with. They think that the only question left is how to deal with the problems caused by climate change.  It's very rare for scientists to agree with each other like this.

It's important to test scientific ideas.  Testing means that we know something is true or not.  The IPCC has done the testing that shows climate change is happening.  So we don't need to argue about it any more - what matters now is doing something about it. 

Myth six - its all to do with the Sun, just like that documentary said