Let's raise a glass to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shares today's Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. Not to slight Al in any way, but I wanted to give a special thanks to the thousands of scientists who have worked hard over the last two decades to research, report, aggregate, synthesize, and present to the world in calm, reasoned language what is really happening with global warming. Those of us who work with scientists and rely on them know that they're conservative by nature. They're not going out on a limb unless they've determined that limb exists and will persist over time through repeated, BACI experiments. Every single word in those IPCC reports is highly negotiated, and for the most part, scientists get no real rewards for participating on policy panels like these. It won't give you tenure, it won't necessarily help you bring in money, and you have to get other people to cover your classes when you're travelling (okay, for some scientists, less teaching is a bonus).