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The author reflects on a paper speculating on runaway climate change if the Earth warms by just two degrees Celsius and on broad reactions to the paper. He states that the Earth will likely warm by three or four degrees Celsius unless drastic environmental policy changes are enacted worldwide which would have significant impacts on lifestyles. He suggests that humanity can still prepare and adapt for the future impacts of climate change.

The article looks at Charles Monnett, a scientist at the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) who has been accused of scientific misconduct and suspended from his post after publishing a paper on ice melt and drowned polar bears in the journal "Polar Biology." Environmentalists and scientists including Michael Bromwich, Phillip Clapham, and Ian Stirling argue that Monnett has been targeted by those who wish to drill for oil and gas in Alaska.

The article presents news related to the scientific field. The world's top science academies from the U.S., Great Britain, China and Russia, have issued an unprecedented joint statement ahead of the G8 summit, putting pressure on governments to take action on climate change. An online academic paper detailing how bioterrorists could contaminate the U.S. milk supply with the botulinum toxin has been removed from the Web site by the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." According to the UN University Institute of Advanced Studies in Yokohama, Japan, exploitation of deep-sea organisms is not regulated by existing treaties.