How to Read the IPCC’s 6th Assessment (if you’re not a scientist)
Guest blog by Dani Lam, Tishman RA and 2020 Aronson Fellow
The latest IPCC report is close to 4000 pages (with appendices). As grateful as I am to the scientists that put together this thorough report, I wish I could say the report is a page turner. I still want to read it though, since climate change is a hot topic (pun intended). After struggling to read it myself, here are some tips just in case you need help reading it.
Stay calm and read about our impending doom.
Take a deep breath. Spoiler alert, it’s all bad news. The IPCC report lays out the cold hard facts and doesn't really focus on solutions. That comes later in the mitigation and adaptation reports.
Don’t start by reading the Full Report.
It’s overwhelming! Did we mention it’s 4000 pages? To be fair, the content is only about 1300 but...TL;DR please?
Skip right to the FAQs.
Ah, the sweet world of high infographic-to-text ratios! No but seriously, this is the good stuff. The FAQ’s are divided into each of the 12 chapters of the IPCC report, so it gives you a good summary of each chapter.
Read only what you like, ignore the rest.
Yeesh, that’s not very good science advice. Assuming you’ve read the FAQ doc though, you likely have a strong basic understanding of climate change. Now you can take a look at the chapters in the full report that most intrigued you.
If you’ve summoned the courage to read parts of the full report, skip chapter 1
Unless you’re a scientist, I’m assuming you’re not interested in scientific methodologies. If you’re a scientist, I’m surprised you made it this far down on my blog post. Just read the 4000 pages, ya smartie!
Focus on only where you live and not the entire world.
So let’s be real - the only question a lot of people really want answered now is: “but how does this affect me?” Cue the Regional Reports! You can scroll right down to North and Central America and read how your personal home will be affected by climate change. (JK, the IPCC has bigger concerns than just you). Table 12.8 on Full Report page 3229 is also great if you’re trying to figure out which part of the U.S. to move to avoid climate change. Hint: if it is on planet Earth, it isn’t going to be great. There’s also an interactive map of the regional reports if you wanna look at pretty maps and click a lot of buttons.
Jokes aside, the IPCC report and, of course, climate change is important. The international scientific community works hard to give us the facts. If every U.S. citizen at least attempted to read the IPCC report, I believe the world would be a better place. Let’s stay informed and work towards a better future!