• Volunteer_btn
  • Facebook_btn
  • Myspace_btn

What's Your Plan for Global Warming

Global warming is happening, and if we don’t act fast, the consequences will be severe, for our generation and for our children.  In February 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body charged with assessing the scientific record on global warming, found that the evidence of global warming is “unequivocal” and concluded, with more than 90 percent certainty, that human activities are responsible for most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century.[1]  Average temperatures worldwide have risen by 1.44° F in the past century and now are increasing at a rate of about 0.36° F per decade.[2]  The hottest 10 years of the global record have occurred since 1990, and 2005 was the warmest year to date.[3]  2006 was the warmest year on record in the United States.[4]

Human activities, particularly burning fossil fuels over the last century, have altered the composition of the atmosphere.  Burning fossil fuels releases large amounts of carbon dioxide, which traps radiation emitted from the earth’s surface that normally would escape back to space.  Since 1750, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by 35%.[5]

The first signs of global warming evident across the U.S. and throughout the world.

  • Melting Ice.  The rise in global temperatures has resulted in thinning ice and decreasing snow cover.  Over the last three decades, the volume and extent of ice cover in the Arctic has been declining rapidly, leading to the possibility that the Arctic could be ice-free during the summer by the end of this century.[6]
  • Rising Sea Levels.  Oceans have risen with the melting of glaciers and ice sheets and the expansion of surface water as it warms. Sea level rose 0.17 meters over the 20th century and rise substantially in years to come.[7]
  • More Severe Storms. Warmer oceans may be contributing to more severe hurricanes. A September 2006 study and others have shown that global warming is the primary cause of rising sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean hurricane formation regions.[8]   According to a study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, global warming contributed to the devastating 2005 hurricane season, causing about half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the North Atlantic in 2005.[9]

Climate scientists warn that the world faces dire consequences unless we find a way to quickly and rapidly reduce our emissions of global warming pollutants.  Many scientists and policy-makers (such as the European Union) recognize a 2˚ Celsius (3.6˚ Fahrenheit) increase in global average temperatures over pre-industrial levels as a rough limit beyond which large-scale, dangerous impacts of global warming would become unavoidable.[10]  Even below 2˚ C, significant impacts from global warming are likely, such as damage to many ecosystems, decreases in crop yields, sea level rise, and the widespread loss of coral reefs.[11]

A year ago, Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s top climatologist, warned, “The Earth’s climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far ranging undesirable consequences.”  These consequences, he said, would “constitute practically a different planet,” pointing to major species extinctions and sea level rise of several meters per century.

Despite these gloomy predictions, however, we share a great hope that America has the smarts, know-how, and desire to solve this massive challenge.

More than anything else, what we desperately need in order to put America to work to solve global warming is an aggressive, nationally coordinated gameplan with strong leadership from the very top.  Our next President must be the person to provide this leadership.

Therefore, we call upon every candidate for the President of the United State of America to outline a detailed plan to stop global warming and communicate that plan clearly through every means available to them.

 

 

[1] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policy Markers, 2 February 2007.

[2] J. Hansen, et al., NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation, downloaded from data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/, 23 May 2006.

[3] J.E. Hansen et al., “NASA GISS Surface Temperature (GISTEMP) Analysis,” in Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A, 2006, downloaded from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/hansen/hansen.html, 7 September 2006. 

[4] National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Reports 2006 Warmest Year on Record for U.S., press release, 9 January 2007, available at http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2772.htm.

[5] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policy Markers, 2 February 2007. 

[6] J.T. Overpeck, et al., “Arctic System on Trajectory to New, Seasonally Ice-Free State,” Eos, 86(34):309 316, August 2005.

[7] Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, Summary for Policy Markers, 2 February 2007. 

[8] B.D. Santer, T.M.L. Wigley, et al, “Forced and unforced ocean temperature changes in Atlantic and Pacific tropical cyclogenesis regions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, September 11, 2006; Michael Mann and Kerry Emanuel, “Atlantic hurricane trends linked to climate change,” EOS, volume 87 (24): 233-244, June 13, 2006.

[9] Trenberth, K. E., and D. J. Shea (2006), “Atlantic hurricanes and natural variability in 2005,” Geophysical Research Letters, 27 June 2006, 33, L12704. 

[10] Malte Meinshausen, “What Does a 2˚ C Target Mean for Greenhouse Gas Concentrations? A Brief Analysis Based on Multi-Gas Emission Pathways and Several Climate Sensitivity Uncertainty Estimates,” in Hans Joachim Schnellnhuber, ed., Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, Cambridge University Press,
2006.

[11] Rachel Warren, “Impacts of Global Climate Change at Different Annual Mean Global Temperature Increases,” in Hans Joachim Schnellnhuber, ed., Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, 2006.