Climate change: still think it's a myth? Tick, tock, tick tock. Time marches inexorably forward. In Cancun at the international climate change summit, negotiators exchange texts and proposals on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But 13 years after the Kyoto Summit, little progress has been made in reaching the political breakthrough needed. In the surreal political bubble where UN texts are thrashed out, it sometimes seems like there is all the time in the world. Meanwhile in the real world outside, each day, and every day, tens of millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases are released into our planet's wafer-thin atmosphere. As the snow gently falls across northern Europe, many of those who'd rather believe we don't have a problem take comfort from the wintry weather. But many of the people who take snow and ice as affirmation for a policy of doing nothing have become confused between trends and events. For a while the snow gives the impression that temperatures are getting cooler but the global average readings tell a different story. Throughout 2010, high temperature records have been broken in country after country and this year will be one of the warmest on record. Sure, it's cold outside, but the natural variability we experience every day in the changing weather must not be confused with the trends that are embedded in longer-term climatic patterns. The trend data show that the world is warming, that the climate is changing and that the release of greenhouse gases is the