SSI Report Back, March 2007
Over the last few months, SSI members have lent their voices and expertise to a wide variety of topics, including funding to combat invasive species, EPA library closures, polar bear threatened species status, and joined a campaign to amplify the latest findings of the IPCC. UCS has also released new reports on climate science, which we thought you would be interested in. Thank you to everyone who participated in bringing scientists' voices to the public and policymakers.
Emerald Ash Borer
EPA Libraries
Northeast Climate Impacts Briefing
Polar Bear Comment Period
IPCC AR4 Release
Exxon Report
Climate Survey
Emerald Ash Borer
The emerald ash borer is a beetle, originally from Asia, that has killed more than 20 million ash trees in several U.S. states. If it spreads, it could eliminate all native ash species across the country. While this situation is dire, it is not too late to protect the vast majority of ash trees in the United States.
UCS activists and SSI generated more than 2,500 phone calls asking the Senate and House Appropriations Subcommittees on Agriculture to commit $90 million for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to address this extraordinary threat-far more money than is currently committed. The Appropriations Committees have only funded the USDA at current levels, about $10 million annually, through February 2007. We will continue to push for additional funding, $45 million, for 2008, while also making sure funding levels are secured for the remainder of this year. You can expect to receive more information and a push for action in the next few months.
EPA Libraries
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun closing its nationwide network of scientific libraries, effectively preventing EPA scientists, other researchers, and the public from accessing vast amounts of data and information on issues from toxicology to pollution. Several libraries have already been dismantled, with their contents either destroyed or shipped to repositories where they are not catalogued and are therefore inaccessible.
The scientific information contained in the EPA libraries is essential to the agency's ability to make fully informed decisions; without it, the agency is hindered in carrying out its mission of protecting human health and the environment. Members of Congress have asked the EPA to cease and desist dismantling these libraries. The EPA tells us that UCS-generated phone and email messages, including at least twenty from SSI members, to specific EPA public affairs staff have been brought to EPA senior management. As a result, EPA is meeting with UCS staff, and our Scientific Integrity Program will work with the EPA to ensure that access to all EPA library documents remains intact.
Northeast Climate Impacts Briefing
On January 18th, UCS Northeast Climate Project Manager Erika Siegfried and Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA) author Katharine Hayhoe hosted a web briefing for over 40 SSI members from across the region. For more on the NECIA climate findings, visit Climate Choices.
Analyses are currently underway to assess impacts of the expected changes in temperature, precipitation and sea level rise projected in the NECIA report on coastal and marine resources, human health, forests and agriculture, and winter recreation across the Northeast, as well as options for mitigation and adaptation. A major Synthesis Report of these findings is expected in spring 2007. More about the NECIA and the technical papers behind the climate projections report.
We also have a unique opportunity to work with Northeast-based people who have undergone The Climate Project training sponsored by Al Gore. Participants in The Climate Project commit to giving motivating presentations on climate change, following the now famous "An Inconvenient Truth" Powerpoint template, to audiences throughout the Northeast. We will make the NECIA findings available for their use, thus giving their presentations a more local flavor that allows audiences to connect to the climate issue more personally. The workshop is set for Saturday March 3rd and we are expecting nearly 40 presenters from The Climate Project to participate.
Polar Bear Comment Period
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is currently seeking comment on a petition to list the polar bear (Ursus maritimus) as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Responding to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity, the FWS sought comments on the proposed listing in 2006. That comment period ended last summer. The government then determined that listing polar bears as threatened was "warranted," opening a twelve-month petition finding. Publication of this 12-Month Finding in the Federal Register initiates a 90-day comment period.
The comment period ends April 9, 2007. If you have not already submitted comments, send them to Polar_Bear_Finding@fws.gov For more information about the rule and comment period, visit FWS.
IPCC AR4 Release
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first working group Summary for Policymakers (SPM) on February 2, 2007. This SPM synthesizes the current understanding of the human influence on climate change and observed evidence of warming, and projects future climate using highly sophisticated climate simulations. The SPM concluded that it is "unequivocal" that the Earth's climate is warming; that current atmospheric concentrations of CO2 far exceed the natural range of the last 650,000 years; and that it is "very likely" (>90%) that human heat-trapping emissions are the cause.
UCS hosted two web seminars on the key findings of the report on February 2 -- one for coalition partners working throughout the country to amplify the findings of the report and the other for 130 SSI scientists.
The audio portion of the seminar and the PowerPoint presentation are available online. We also have a number of resources available that you can use to disseminate the findings of this first report: a PowerPoint presentation template for your use when speaking with public audiences and a brochure on the key findings of Working Group I. Visit here for more information.
In addition, we organized an "AR4 Communicators Campaign" to help our member keep up-to-date as the findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment were reported and amplified across the country. Members had access to fact sheets and PowerPoint Presentations, as well as breaking news and briefings on the working group releases.
Report on ExxonMobil Climate Misinformation Campaign
On January 3, the Union of Concerned Scientists released "Smoke,Mirrors, and Hot Air: How ExxonMobil uses Big Tobacco Tactics toManufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science." (pdf)
The report documents how ExxonMobil has underwritten one of the most successful disinformation campaigns since the tobacco industry's 40-year effort to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking. In recent years, ExxonMobil provided close to $16 million in funding to a web of organizations that disseminate the views of a dwindling group of climate change contrarians. Through this sophisticated effort, ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about even the most indisputable scientific evidence on global warming. Disturbingly, ExxonMobil has drawn on the same tactics, and even some of the same organizations and people, as Big Tobacco.
The report also reveals how ExxonMobil's extraordinary influence over key officials in the White House and Congress has fueled the disinformation campaign and helped to forestall federal action to reduce U.S. global warming emissions.
Survey of Federal Scientists
In early February, at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, UCS released a report detailing how federal government agencies are interfering with the ability of federal climate scientists to communicate about their research.
The report, which summarizes a joint investigation by UCS and the Government Accountability Project (GAP), includes a survey of hundreds of federal scientists at seven federal agencies and dozens of in-depth interviews. Dr. Francesca Grifo, senior scientist and director of the UCS Scientific Integrity Program, testified before the committee about the findings of the investigation and ways to insulate federal science from political interference. The report is available on the UCS website.
