Impact of Climate Change:
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Over 800 colleges and universities, K-12 schools, civic organizations and religious groups are participating in Focus the Nation, potentially the largest simultaneous teach-in in history. (READ MORE) |
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"if
you're really interested in global warming and climate change,
then it seems like to me that we ought to promote technologies
to advance the development of safe nuclear power. It's a renewable
source of energy, and at the same time has no emissions to
it. But also, we're advancing clean-coal technologies. The
goal is to have a zero-emission coal-fired plant. And then,
in the State of the Union, I talked about another aspect of
economic security and environmental quality, and that is changing
the habits – or changing how we power our cars.” |
[George W. Bush, NPR
interview
conducted by Juan Williams on Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 |
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| News: "U.S. scales back climate science
via satellites" |
| http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19030744/ |
June 4, 2007
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is drastically scaling back
efforts to measure global warming from space, just as the president
tries to convince the world the U.S. is ready to take the lead
in reducing greenhouse gases.
A confidential report to the White House, obtained by The Associated
Press, warns that U.S. scientists will soon lose much of their
ability to monitor warming from space using a costly and problem-plagued
satellite initiative begun more than a decade ago. |
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| Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Timeline |
http://www.epa.gov/history/timeline/index.htm
http://www.epa.gov/earthday/history.htm |
Born in the wake of elevated
concern about environmental pollution, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency opened its doors in downtown Washington, D.C.,
on December 2, 1970. EPA was established to consolidate in one
agency a variety of federal research, monitoring, standard-setting
and enforcement activities to ensure environmental protection.
EPA's mission is to protect human health and to safeguard the
natural environment—air, water, and land—upon which
life depends. For more than 30 years, the EPA has been working
for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people.
From regulating auto emissions to banning the use of DDT; from
cleaning up toxic waste to protecting the ozone layer; from increasing
recycling to revitalizing inner-city brownfields, EPA's achievements
have resulted in cleaner air, purer water, and better protected
land. (website description) |
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| USA Today: "Science
V. Bush: A heated collision" |
| The Associated Press (August 16, 2004) |
Last November, President
Bush gave physicist Richard Garwin a medal for his "valuable
scientific advice on important questions of national security." Just
three months later, Garwin signed a statement condemning the
Bush administration for misusing, suppressing and distorting
scientific advice.
(Update July, 2007: So far more than
11,000 scientists, including 48 Nobel prize winners, have
put their names to the declaration.) |
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| Statement: "Restoring
Scientific Integrity in Policymaking" |
| On February 18, 2004, over
60 leading scientists–Nobel laureates, leading medical
experts, former federal agency directors, and university chairs
and presidents–signed the statement below, voicing their
concern over the misuse of science by the Bush administration. UCS
is seeking the signatures of thousands of additional U.S. scientists
in support of this effort. |
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| News: "Bush
Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming" |
By Andrew C. Revkin, The
New York Times (June 8, 2005)
A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight
against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government
climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions
and global warming, according to internal documents. In handwritten
notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the
official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions
of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors,
including some senior Bush administration officials, had already
approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports. |
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| Report: "Confronting
Climate Change in the US Northeast: Science Impacts and Solutions" [PDF]
by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment Synthesis Team |
| The Northeast Climate Impacts
Assessment (NECIA) is a collaboration between the Union of Concerned
Scientists (UCS) and a team of more than fifty independent experts
to develop and communicate a new assessment of climate change,
impacts on climate-sensitive sectors, and solutions in the northeastern
United States. Launched in May, 2005, the goal of the assessment
is to combine state-of-the-art analyses with effective outreach
to provide policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public with
the best available science upon which to base informed choices
about climate change mitigation and adaptation. (site description) |
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| Emergency Preparation |
| http://www.fema.gov/ |
| Now a division of the
Department of Homeland Security, FEMA is responsible for responding
to, recovering from and mitigating against disasters such as
the emergency evaluation and response to natural disasters caused
by earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, snowstorms, hail,
forest fires, drought and weather-related phenomenon. |
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| US Green Building Council |
| http://www.usgbc.org/ |
| The U.S. Green Building
Council (USGBC) is a non-profit composed of leaders from every
sector of the building industry working to promote buildings
that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy
places to live and work. Our more than 9,000 member organizations
and our network of 75 regional chapters are united to advance
our mission of transforming the building industry to sustainability. (web
description) |
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| National Parks Conservation Agency Report: "Unnatural Disaster" |
| http://www.npca.org/globalwarming/ |
| NPCA offers recommended actions for federal, state, and local governments, along with individuals, to take to slow, and in some cases, halt the damage to our national parks. The national parks offer a unique opportunity to draw attention to America’s priceless resources at risk, and to showcase opportunities to act to protect them. |
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| U.S. Global Change Research Program |
| http://www.usgcrp.gov/ |
| The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)
supports research on the interactions of natural and human-induced changes
in the global environment and their implications for society. The USGCRP
began as a presidential initiative in 1989 and was codified by Congress
in the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-606), which mandates
development of a coordinated interagency research program. |
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| Assessing the impacts of climate variability
and change on the Nation's resources |
| http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/assessment/ |
| Site for a USGS project
under the U.S. Global Change Research Program for a national assessment
of the impacts of climate variability and change on resources with links
to impacts in Alaska, western U.S., public lands, and water resources. |
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Documents [PDF] |
| Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2005. Executive Summary |
| http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/pdf/057305.pdf |
| The fourteenth annual report, presents the Energy Information
Administration's latest estimates of emissions for carbon dioxide, methane,
nitrous oxide, and other greenhouse gases. Report published February 2007
by the United States Energy Information Administration. |
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| Our Changing Planet. The
U.S.
Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2007 |
| http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/ocp2007/ocp2007.pdf |
| A Report by the Climate Change Science Program
and The Subcommittee on Global Change Research. A
Supplement to the President's Fiscal Year 2007 Budget |
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| Preview of Our Changing Planet. The
U.S.
Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Year 2008. |
| http://www.gcrio.org/ocp2008/OCP2008_Preview.pdf |
A Report by the Climate Change Science
Program and the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. A Supplement to the President's Budget
for Fiscal Year 2008.
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