MONTHLY NEWSLETTER JUNE 2019
Woods Hole Research Center Fiddling while Rome burns Dr. Philip B. Duffy President & Executive Director The Trump administration recently announced plans to create a “Presidential Committee on Climate Security,” to assess whether climate change poses a risk to US national security. This ill-advised committee is a dangerous diversion. We need to move on from debating whether or not climate change is a problem to taking serious action to stop it.
Numerous assessments conducted by national security and climate science professionals have already established that climate change is a serious national security risk. This new review is apparently to be performed by a hand-picked set of climate change deniers led by William Happer, who rejects the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases, and in fact, has accused scientists of “demonizing” carbon dioxide. All of this, therefore, seems like a cynical attempt to produce preordained conclusions that support a political agenda, rather than a legitimate scientific inquiry. Be that as it may, if the committee goes it should be subject to the same rigorous academic peer-review as other climate assessments like the National Climate Assessment and reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
All of this is a distraction from what we should be focused on: solutions. It is encouraging to see the beginnings of a bipartisan consensus on this point. Earlier this year, Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), and Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) published an op-ed declaring, “Climate change is real, and as Republican Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we are focused on solutions.” And at two different House hearings, Republicans invited witnesses who accepted the climate science consensus and chose to focus debate on how America can respond.
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By NASA Goddard Space Flight Center from Greenbelt, MD, USA
Extreme weather puts spotlight on climate change impacts by Miles Grant The beginning of 2019 was the 3rd-warmest ever, according to the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the five warmest January-May periods have all come in the last five years. The United States has been wracked by extreme precipitation, with May being the 2nd-wettest month in US history. 2019 is also the wettest year-to-date and the United States is experiencing the wettest 12-month period in recorded history. With a range of extreme weather records falling or being challenged in the early months of 2019, WHRC Senior Scientist Jennifer Francis has been a prominent voice in the national conversation about climate change’s influences.
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WHRC is an independent research organization where scientists study climate change and how to solve it, from the Amazon to the Arctic. Learn more at www.whrc.org.