" It’s absolutely obvious that global warming has started,” France’s president, Jacques Chirac, said after attending the 2004 summit of leaders of the world’s major industrial powers—the Group of 8. “And so we have to act responsibly, and, if we do nothing, we would bear a heavy responsibility. I had the chance to talk to the United States president about this. To tell you that I convinced him would be a total exaggeration, as you can imagine. "

― Elizabeth Kolbert , Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change