Hi, folks. I’m back in town and glad to be back on the blog.
This weekend, Americans will observe Earth Day. ABC is getting started early, airing a daylong look at the state of our planet today (see preview).
I am especially anxious to tune into 20/20 tonight. I am told I will be featured on two segments: an interview on solar energy and a panel discussion on global warming.
John Balbus, M.D., M.P.H. is a senior scientist and head of the Environmental Defense health program.
People tend to think that human life is independent from other species – that global warming’s effect on other life forms is sad, but not of direct concern. Think again! What happens to other species can have a profound effect on us. Global warming can change where on earth a particular life form can or cannot thrive. And when that life form carries or causes disease, look out!
Consider this case in point:
Lisa Moore is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.
The EPA just released its most recent estimate of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, which shows that our global warming pollution continues to climb. Since 1990, emissions are up more than 16 percent. But the EPA is casting this as a victory. How?
Lisa Moore is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program.
Bill Chameides is out of the office, but science, policy and news about global warming keep coming in. Yesterday, a group of military experts declared that climate change threatens national security (registration required). Their report [PDF] says:
Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world, and it presents significant national security challenges for the United States…. The increasing risks from climate change should be addressed now because they will almost certainly get worse if we delay.
Lisa Moore is a scientist in the Climate and Air Program in Environmental Defense’s New York office. Along with principal author Jennifer Kefer, colleague Tim Searchinger and the National Wildlife Federation’s David Conrad, she is a co-author of the new report “America’s Flood Risk is Heating Up.”
This weekend’s monster nor’easter prompted flood warnings and evacuations from the Carolinas to Maine. And what ironic timing: last week, as the storm wreaked havoc in the South, Environmental Defense and the National Wildlife Federation released a report detailing how the Army Corps of Engineers’ flood-control program needs to be completely re-vamped [PDF], especially in light of climate change.
While helping draft the report, I was struck by two things in particular.
“Who are the fanatics now? The ones that live in denial – political denial, economic denial, and environmental denial.”
– Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking on “Twenty-First Century Environmentalism: How Protecting Our Environment Will Create Economic Growth” for the Council on Foreign Relations, April 12, 2007.