Climate Change
The evidence that human-induced global climate change is under way is increasingly clear and compelling. As Earth gets warmer, the risk grows that the climate will change in ways that will seriously disrupt our lives and environment. The most severe impacts include: a rise in sea level; more heat waves and droughts; more extreme weather events, producing floods and property losses; and vector-borne diseases extending their range into new areas.
Despite mounting evidence of the reality of climate change, the gap between scientific understanding of the gravity of the problem on the one hand and policy action on the other remains wide. This gap is particularly frustrating because we can do something—in fact, many things—about global warming.
The Sound Science Initiative provides opportunities for scientists to raise public awareness and understanding on climate change issues, and to promote effective, environmentally sound policies to mitigate and adapt to global climate change.
Our Work
Some of the ways in which SSI staff and scientists have been active on climate change issues include:
- Communicating with legislators.
SSI members regularly communicate with legislators and key administration officials to strengthen and support sound science-based policies to reduce the threat of climate change, whether it be interacting at international climate negotiations or challenging congressional efforts to muzzle the Environmental Protection Agency's global warming educational outreach.
- Educating the public.
SSI has widely publicized the importance of documents such as the National Assessment on climate impacts and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) assessment reports.
- Promoting climate impacts information.
SSI members have promoted a variety of printed and Web-based materials to raise awareness of the potential ecological impacts of climate change. Most recently, we have collaborated with the Ecological Society of America to produce materials to bring the ecological impacts of climate change home to particular regions of the United States. In 1999, UCS and ESA released Confronting Climate Change in California, an in-depth look at the impacts and solutions for the state of California. This work was followed by similar reports on the impacts of climate change in the Gulf Coast Region in 2001, the Great Lakes Region in 2003, and the Northeast and again California in 2006.
- Defending sound science.
SSI continuely monitors news and policy for misrepresentation of climate and biodiversity science. We identify opportunities for SSI members to send letters to newspapers, write their policymakers, submit comments to federal dockets and engage their community on the impacts and solutions to climate change and the importance of protecting biodiversity.
- Participating in international climate negotiations.
SSI members have played an active role in international climate negotiations by helping to lay the foundation for a strong climate treaty. In the midst of the Kyoto climate summit negotiations, for example, the Clinton administration wavered on its original negotiating position. SSI members responded with more than 35 documented letters from expert climate scientists, playing a vital role in persuading the administration to hold firm on its position and the subsequent inclusion of all six greenhouse gases in the final protocol.
- Visiting Capitol Hill.
Having heard from senior Hill staffers that ignorance and misinformation about the most basic climate science still exists among many legislators, SSI has sponsored a series of meetings between a coalition of scientists and their congressional representatives in Washington, D.C. to discuss climate change issues.
Learn more in UCS Global Warming section.
