The Preserve Our Climate Coalition is circulating a petition calling upon the Wisconsin Legislature to join other states in the effort against global warming.
Warming to the task
By
Michael Neuman
The U.S. is becoming increasingly more vulnerable to heat-related mortality, air pollution-related illnesses, infectious diseases and malnutrition as global warming continues to accelerate this century due to the increasing buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from too much fossil fuel burning around the world.
That was the conclusion of scientists attending the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February in Washington, D.C. The AAAS is an international non-profit organization serving some 262 affiliated academies of science and dedicated to advancing science around the world, including the science of global climate change.
Presenters at the meeting from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California produced evidence that the world's oceans are warming, a finding they say "removes any and all doubt about the reality of global warming." UW-Madison professor Jonathan A. Patz gave a presentation titled "Climate Change to Bring a Wave of New Health Risks," and concluded that global warming "won't occur gradually but instead will happen more dramatically" in the form of severe weather events in the U.S., including major storms, heat waves and flooding.
A presentation by researchers from Harvard University's Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences predicted global warming will stifle summer winds across parts of the northern United States and the Midwest over the next 50 years, causing worsening air pollution by blocking cold fronts that would otherwise bring cooler, cleaner air from Canada. Ironically, Wisconsin issued its first-ever statewide air health advisory this February due to similar such weather patterns, with fine particle pollutants from automobile and truck exhaust, power plants and other combustion sources supplying the prerequisite ingredients that made the advisory necessary.
In the time since the AAAS conference, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the University of Illinois at Urbana has published a report predicting that Wisconsin and the Midwest face even more extreme weather in the future due to global warming. The report concludes Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region's agriculture will see more flooding, drought and more dangerous heat waves. Maximum daily temperatures in the Great Lakes region are predicted to rise by as much as 5 to l2 degrees Fahrenheit in winter, and 5 to 20 degrees in summer.
The report predicts global warming will cause changing precipitation patterns, more extreme rainfall events, rising ozone concentrations and an increase in pests and pathogens to come to bear on Wisconsin's farming industry.
In the absence of legislative action at the federal level to confront global climate change a number of U.S. states are now in the process of establishing - or have already established - their own regulatory and assistance programs aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change. Wisconsin, however, is not one of them.
Nine northeastern states - Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont - have formed what they are calling the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, requiring each of these states to meet individually set targets for reducing emissions from all sources. The governors of Washington, Oregon and California, in concluding that global warming will have a serious adverse consequence on their economy, health and environment, jointly approved a series of detailed recommendations in November 2004 to reduce global warming pollution on the West Coast. Meanwhile, the California Air Resources Board ordered automakers to reduce their global-warming emissions by 30 percent, starting in 2009, and the California state Public Utilities Commission has begun judging competitive bids from electricity suppliers in California based on the quantity of greenhouse gases emitted.
In the Midwest, a Minnesota state legislative committee has solicited testimony from meteorologists and Arctic explorer Will Steger on the influences of global warming on the climate, weather and natural resources. On February 21, 2005, the Minnesota Senate Jobs, Energy and Community Development Committee heard compelling testimony from Twin Cities' meteorologist Paul Douglas and Steger on the increasing threat of global warming for states in the Midwest. Climate change is real and it will have severe impacts on the Midwest and the world in the coming decades, unless concerted action is taken soon, warned the presenters. (Here is a link to a video of their presentations.)
The Wisconsin Legislature and the governor have not placed a high enough priority on the creation and implementation of policy and program actions aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from Wisconsin sources. The Preserve Our Climate Coalition of the Madison area is circulating a petition requesting the Wisconsin Legislature join other legislatures from throughout the nation in responding to the growing threat of climate warming by enacting climate change legislation and establishing programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Wisconsin sources to provide assistance to Wisconsin citizens and businesses to preparing for and adapt to a warmer Wisconsin climate.
The Preserve Our Climate Coalition will deliver the completed petition to the state Legislature by Earth Day, April 22, 2005.
April 7, 2005
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Michael Neuman lives in Madison and is a member and Web site manager of the Preserve Our Climate Coalition of the Madison area .
