As the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works kicks off hearings on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, leaders from communities on the frontlines of climate impacts are on Capitol Hill, making their case for action - among other things, that global warming disproportionately impacts low-income and minority communities.
"We have a clear and simple message to our Senators: We're counting on you, to pass a strong climate and energy bill that will safeguard people and communities," said Marc Littlejohn, manager of Diversity Partnerships, National Wildlife Federation.
"Climate change is a civil rights issue and the most vulnerable people to its dangerous impacts are inner city African-Americans," said Hilary O. Shelton, senior vice president for Advocacy and director of the NAACP DC Bureau. "The time is now to enact comprehensive climate change policies."
A Zogby survey found that a majority of likely voters want the Senate to act quickly to bring about a new energy plan for America. The public's desire for action is also reflected by a majority of African Americans, who believe climate change is a growing problem that demands action now, according to a recent poll by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
"We must take action to reduce global warming pollution now, while there is still time to avert the worst impacts," said Joe Mendelson, director of Global Warming Policy, National Wildlife Federation. "Investing in a clean energy future and reducing the carbon pollution that causes global warming will help communities nationwide, especially the most vulnerable. The good news is that a clean energy future can also create new economic opportunities for underserved communities."
The Christian Coalition has joined the National Wildlife Federation to push for comprehensive climate and energy legislation.
The religious grassroots organization teamed with NWF to release an advertisement calling for action by the U.S. Senate to jump-start America's clean energy economy and reduce foreign oil dependence.
"Defending the status quo is no longer an option. We need swift action to ensure America is the world leader in clean energy technology," the ad reads. "Senators should work together to move forward with a clean energy plan for America."
News of the partnership comes amid a broader shift in clean energy advocacy. More nontraditional groups are speaking out in support of a clean energy bill in recent months, including hunters, anglers, and Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran.
When the great-grandson of a former president and a respected former senator get together for a talk with a few thousand concerned citizens, people pay attention.
More than 13,000 hunters and anglers joined a national teleconference - a virtual town hall meeting dedicated to the discussion of global warming's effects on wildlife and the need for legislation to curb carbon pollution and safeguard natural resources.
The call was co-hosted by the National Wildlife Federation Action Fund, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and American Hunters and Shooters, and included Ted Roosevelt IV, a noted conservationist, and former Sen. John Warner (R-VA).
The call generated "an unheard-of outpouring of interest and support from sportsmen and women for clean energy solutions to climate change," said Jim Lyon, National Wildlife Federation vice president for Conservation Policy, who moderated the event. "No collection of people has a better understanding of the impacts of climate change we are seeing and for the need to act."
Indeed, the teleconference represented the latest stage of a vocal movement by American sportsmen to move the issue of global warming to the fore. A recent NWF poll of hunters and anglers found that 66 percent of respondents believed the effects of global warming are already occurring, and many concerned sportsmen have taken to the nation's capital in recent months to lobby the U.S. Senate for comprehensive climate and energy legislation that would help protect the habitats and species they cherish.
"It's very important in my opinion that we do pass the climate change bill," said Roosevelt IV.
According to the latest edition of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) annual Arctic report card, drastically receding Arctic sea ice may alter the climate and weather balance for the entire planet.
"Basically, with less sea ice, we're messing with the thermostat for the whole globe," said Richard Spinrad, assistant administrator of the NOAA.
The report comes in the wake of findings that the Arctic may be virtually free of ice during non-winter months within the next 10-20 years, potentially leading to climbing temperatures worldwide.
As seasonal ice melts during the summer months, darker, sunlight-absorbing water is exposed, intensifying global warming's effects. Without ice cover for much of the year, these effects will deepen, creating a formidable feedback loop and spurring organisms ever northward while affecting circulation patterns.
"Climate change is happening faster in the Arctic than any other place on Earth - and with wide-ranging consequences," said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "This year's Arctic Report Card underscores the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas pollution and adapting to climate changes already under way."
The Obama Administration has released a proposed rule designating critical habitat for polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.
After listing the bear as threatened under the Act last year, the Department of Interior is now proposing to designate for protection 200,541 square miles of the polar bear's melting sea ice habitat, as well as barrier islands and terrestrial den habitat.
"The Department of Interior continues to demonstrate its commitment to safeguarding wildlife and natural resources from the current and anticipated effects of climate change. Designating critical habitat will give polar bears some much needed relief," said John Kostyack, executive director of Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming at National Wildlife Federation.
"While Congress works to address the challenge of climate change comprehensively through legislation that caps global warming pollution and invests in clean energy jobs and natural resources safeguards, we applaud the Obama administration for moving forward with protections for wildlife already being threatened by climate change."
The National Wildlife Federation intends to analyze the detailed maps of the areas covered by the proposed critical habitat designation and provide comments to the Interior Department.
The threat of unchecked global warming has brought some nontraditional groups to the table to demand legislation that cuts carbon pollution and stimulates a clean energy economy. Among them: Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and devoted hunters and anglers. Military veterans recently embarked on a 21-state biodiesel bus tour to talk to leaders and civilians about global warming and its effect on national security. The event is sponsored by Operation Free, a partnership of veterans and national security groups working to raise awareness about the threats posed to national security by global warming and the need to reduce dependence on foreign oil by jump-starting an American clean energy economy. "As the impact of irreversible climate change and the need for cheap energy increases, you'll see more resource conflicts, more epidemics, and more deaths," wrote Operation Free veteran Rafael Noboa Rivera in The Hill's Congress Blog. "We will [change course] if people like me are paid heed. We must change. Doing so will result in security and wealth for America. Our present course can only end in failure and ruin." Sportsmen are also pushing for action, supporting bold leaders and going all-out to protect the natural habitats they know so well. Among the recipients of their encouragement is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) recently outlined a bipartisan agreement on a Senate climate plan in a joint op-ed in the New York Times. Sen. Graham was saluted in a teleconference hosted by the South Carolina Wildlife Federation (SCWF) last week. During the call, hunters and anglers reported the effects of global warming on their own chosen outdoor spots and the need for other lawmakers to follow Sen. Graham's example. "I have observed things in my lifetime that suggest that significant impacts have already been felt here in our state," said Clinch Heyward, chairman, SCWF. "I was deer hunting last weekend and here it is October and it is 90 degrees." "If you go out and hunt at the same time in the same season and the same place every year, then you understand the changes that are happening," added Jeremy Symons, senior vice president for conservation at the National Wildlife Federation. Next in line: a national sportsmen tele-town hall discussion today featuring Ted Roosevelt IV, Former Sen. John Warner (R-VA), Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership President George Cooper, Captain Franklin Adams, and thousands of other concerned conservationists. The voices of these and other groups make up a vital component of the public outreach efforts on the side of clean energy. Powerful coal and oil lobbies oppose them, but their unique messages are potent indicators of the broad and growing consensus that we must act soon to avert the worst effects of manmade climate change.
Vice President Biden joined the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal departments to release a report, Recovery Through Retrofit, detailing efforts to increase clean energy job opportunities and make homes more energy efficient. "Recovery Through Retrofit is a blueprint that will create good green jobs - jobs that can't be outsourced, and jobs that will be the cornerstones of a 21st-Century economy," said Vice President Biden."And, thanks to the Recovery Act's unprecedented investments in energy efficiency, we are making it easier for American families to retrofit their homes--helping them save money while reducing carbon emissions and creating a healthier environment for our families." The plan, which is projected to save up to $21 billion each year through energy efficiency improvements, will provide American homeowners with simple and reliable home energy retrofit information, make energy retrofits more accessible by reducing high upfront costs, and establish national workforce certifications and training standards. According to the report, these measures and others "will lay the groundwork for a self-sustaining home energy efficiency retrofit industry" and "[provide] a roadmap of how the Federal Government can use existing authorities and funds to unlock private capital and mobilize our communities."
An Environmental Protection Agency document buried by the Bush administration because of its corroboration of global warming science surfaced, casting doubts on White House environmental efforts between 2000 and 2008. An email and 28-page paper, labeled "Deliberative, Do Not Distribute," show that the EPA concluded in 2007 that gases linked to global warming pose a public threat, especially to air quality, agriculture, wildlife, and water resources, and should be regulated. The EPA finding was rejected by the Bush White House, which opposed the Clean Air Act as a global warming-curbing measure and stalled on producing a Supreme Court-ordered endangerment finding on the risks of unchecked global warming. The document itself was prepared as part of the administration's response to the Supreme Court's April 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the EPA was compelled to move to regulate carbon pollution by twelve U.S. states. Until last week, only select House and Senate investigators had seen the endangerment finding. The Obama administration has broken sharply with the global warming findings and practices of its White House predecessors, determining that carbon pollution endangers public safety and mandating new EPA-drafted emissions standards for motor vehicles and regulation attempts for large emissions sources.
The Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development (FIELD) says the effects of unchecked global warming may create groups of "climate exiles" - migrant communities left homeless by turbulent environmental conditions and unprotected by international refugee laws. "Migration in itself is not bad," said Joy Hyvarinen, a director of FIELD. "But migration forced by climate change is a tragedy and the international legal framework needs to be adjusted to help climate exiles and deal with statelessness and compensation." The United Nations reported in June that 200 million people could be displaced by midcentury, citing the International Organization for Migration.
A leading polar scientist says global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean virtually devoid of ice within 20 years, posing a severe threat to resident wildlife such as seals and polar bears and affecting the planet's climate stability. "The data supports the new consensus view -- based on seasonal variation of ice extent and thickness, changes in temperatures, winds and especially ice composition -- that the Arctic will be ice-free in summer within about 20 years," said Peter Wadhams a professor of ocean physics at the University of Cambridge. "Much of the decrease will be happening within 10 years." The findings add to the chorus of scientists who say waning Arctic ice is one of the clearest indicators of global warming and a call to action for leaders working toward an international climate agreement in Copenhagen later this year. But the melting trend isn't only a gauge of climate developments: the Arctic Ocean also plays a vital climate regulation role for the entire planet. As seasonal ice melts during the summer months, darker, sunlight-absorbing water is exposed, intensifying global warming's effects. Without ice cover for much of the year, these effects will deepen. "The Arctic Sea ice holds a central position in our Earth's climate system. Take it out of the equation and we are left with a dramatically warmer world," said Dr Martin Sommerkorn, from the World Wildlife Fund's Arctic program.
"This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions .... and extreme global weather changes."
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