Key Scientists discuss the signs of an impending Pacific El Nino event, and what it means.

President Obama unveiled the Third National Climate Assessment (NCA) today, with the help of several of his cabinet members, other high-ranking government officials, scientists and meteorologists.

“As this important report shows, climate change is hurting Americans today — and will continue to harm our environment, our health and our infrastructure,” said Fred Krupp , president of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). “We need to work together to meet this challenge, starting with federal limits on climate pollution from power plants. We have no time to waste. That’s why it matters so much that President Obama is leading a national conversation about climate change and the extreme weather impacts we’ve all been noticing.”

The NCA is the work of more than 300 experts who looked at all available data on the effects climate change is having on the U.S. It was overseen by a 60-member Federal Advisory Committee and was reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences with input from the public.

The NCA reaches the same essential conclusions on a domestic level as the global IPCC reports that were released earlier this year. These scientific reports found that the evidence indicates, beyond a reasonable scientific doubt, that human-driven emissions of greenhouse gases are causing climate change, that damage from climate change is already occurring, and that we’ll need both mitigation and adaptation to address climate change risks in the future.

Among the key findings in the NCA :

“Evidence for climate change abounds …The sum total of this evidence tells an unambiguous story: the planet is warming.”

• Average U.S. temperatures have increased by 1.3 to 1.9 degrees Fahrenheit since record-keeping began in 1895. Most of this warming has occurred since 1970.
• The most recent decade was America’s hottest on record.
• The U.S. will likely see more warming in the next few decades – possibly up to another four degrees Fahrenheit in some areas.
• The U.S. is seeing increasingly intense heat waves in the western portion of the country, and increasingly intense flooding in the eastern portion.
• Droughts in the Southwest and heat waves everywhere are projected to become more intense in the future.
• There has been an increase in the overall strength of hurricanes and in the number of strong hurricanes in the North Atlantic since the early 1980′s. The intensity of the strongest hurricanes is projected to continue increasing as the oceans continue to warm.
• Climate change increases the likelihood of water shortages. The western U.S. relies heavily on mountain snowpack for water storage, and spring snowpack is declining in most of the West.
• There have been large reductions in glaciers and permafrost.
• Summer sea ice in the Arctic has halved since record-keeping began in 1979. 2012 set a new record for minimum area of Arctic ice.
• Over the past century global sea level has risen by about 8 inches. Since 1992, the rate of global sea rise has been roughly twice the rate observed over the last century.
• Sea level rise has increased coastal erosion and storm surge damage in the U.S.
• Sea levels are projected to rise as much as another four feet this century.
• The report also has a chapter on how climate change is affecting our ecosystems.

“Healthy ecosystems are the frontline defense against the most extreme impacts of a changing climate,” said Rebecca Shaw , senior scientist and associate vice president of Land, Water and Wildlife at Environmental Defense Fund. “With increasing droughts, floods and hurricanes, we can protect ourselves from such devastating impacts by investing in projects that boost our natural infrastructure and protect our food and water systems.”

According to the NCA, some climate change-related impacts are now unavoidable, and adaptation measures will be necessary, but the U.S. can still act to protect itself:

“[B]eyond the next few decades, the amount of climate change will still largely be determined by choices society makes about emissions. Lower emissions mean less future warming and less severe impacts.”

The U.S. has taken several steps to reduce climate pollution and is expected to take others soon. One major next step is a proposal that will set the first-ever national limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants, which are responsible for 40 percent of all carbon pollution in the U.S. The Obama Administration is expected to unveil that proposal in early June.

The U.S. has already taken some steps to reduce climate pollution, and is expected to take others soon. The most important of those will be a proposal to set the first-ever national limits on power plants, which the Obama Administration is expected to unveil that proposal in early June.

“The good news is that because we know what the cause is, we also know what is needed in order to stabilize our planet,” said EDF climate scientist Ilissa Ocko. “We must come together now-locally, nationally, and internationally-and work towards a better future.”

WASHINGTON – May 6 – The third National Climate Assessment released today highlights the effects of climate change across our nation, and concludes that we are not prepared for the significant risks posed by our rapidly changing climate. The assessment is a Congressional-mandated report that includes evidence and research from 13 federal science agencies. Today’s National Climate Assessment comes on the heels of a major report released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in April, a compendium of data and research authored by hundreds of scientists and experts around the world, which also concluded that we must take quick, decisive measures to reduce our carbon pollution if we are to avoid the most catastrophic impacts from climate change.

Amid these warnings, news reports abound of the fossil-fuel industry’s self-serving attacks on practical solutions to climate change, most notably efforts to thwart existing state renewable portfolio standards and incentives for solar and other renewable power, even in the face of this mounting evidence that we need to focus on ramping up clean energy resources to replace fossil fuels.

Statement by Trip Van Noppen, President of Earthjustice:

“The National Climate Assessment paints a bleak picture, but it is a picture we have seen clearly for many years, and we have to act on it now.”

“President Obama will unveil proposed safeguards on carbon pollution from existing power plants next month. These new protections are the centerpiece of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan to avoid the costliest and most disastrous effects of climate change. Coal-fired power plants are the single largest cause of our nation’s climate pollution problem. When the safeguards are finalized, communities across the nation and around the world will benefit from healthier air and a safer climate.

“The divide between the fossil-fuel industries misguided attempts to place profits above the needs of our families and communities grows as each new scientific report is released. Every time we take any action on climate change, this industry claims the sky is falling. As our communities reel from droughts, floods, forest fires, fossil fuel disasters, crop failures and more, it becomes harder for these polluters and those aligned with them to hide just how out of touch from reality they are.”

Statement by Abigail Dillen, Earthjustice Vice President of Litigation for Climate and Energy:

“We will continue to do our part for a, livable, prosperous future by championing clean energy and the common-sense policies that support it, from renewable portfolio standards and rooftop solar “net metering” policies to limits on climate pollution for the worst carbon polluters. State by state, city by city, if necessary.

“As a nation, we need to act on the warnings we are getting from our own scientists and protect the health of our families, communities and environment. We need to leave a lasting climate legacy that sets strong protections against carbon pollution from existing coal plants—the largest contributors to carbon pollution and a changing climate.”

Online Version of Statement >

Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.

Human-induced climate change is projected to continue, and it will accelerate significantly if global emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to increase.

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Although the U.S. is said to be in the midst of an economic recovery, the percentage of Americans lacking consistent access to food has been stuck at the same level since 2008, the heart of the Great Recession. Congress hasn’t helped matters any by deciding to slash food stamp benefits at just the wrong moment.

As of 2012, the most recent year for which data are available, there were about 49 million Americans who, like the Ryans, were “food insecure,”meaning they have limited access to sufficient amounts of food, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Interviews with several food banks around the country suggest things haven’t really improved since then.

Desiree Metcalf’s story is heartbreaking, but among the 46 million Americans who are poor today, her story is not unique.

Metcalf is 24 years old.

She’s the mother of three little girls — ages 6, 4 and 2.

[…]

“I just feel like I get one piece of good news that makes me [think] life isn’t gonna be that bad, and then here comes 30 things to basically push me right back down in this hole that I feel like I’ve been trying to dig myself out of for the last probably 15 years,” she says.

Metcalf did not just become poor. A lot of bad things happened to get her there. Like many others who are poor, she doesn’t have just one or two problems, but a whole pile of them.

A new report warns human-driven climate change is having dramatic health, ecological and financial impacts across United States. The White House’s "National Climate Assessment" details how the consequences of climate change are hitting on several fronts — rising sea levels along the coasts, droughts and fires in the Southwest, and extreme rainfall across the country. It warns that unless greenhouse emissions are curbed, U.S. temperatures could increase up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. Reportedly the largest, most comprehensive U.S.-focused climate change study ever produced, the report is being called a possible "game changer" for efforts to address climate change.

Radley Horton, a climatologist at the Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University, who co-wrote the Northeast region chapter of the National Climate Assessment states:

"This report really tells the story very succinctly about how all Americans will be impacted by climate change," Horton says. "It’s a nonpartisan issue."

Underground disposal of wastewater from fracking may pose a much greater risk of causing dangerous earthquakes than previously believed, particularly in areas of the U.S. Southwest and Midwest where earthquake faults have not been mapped extensively, seismology researchers said at a conference Thursday.

Worse yet, scientists are not yet able to predict which wastewater injection sites are likely to pose risks to buildings or critical structures such as power plants, and do not yet know what operators might do to mitigate the hazard. And new research indicates that the disposal wells are capable of affecting earthquake faults that are miles away from them.

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More than 134 million Americans live in the danger zones around 3,433 facilities in several
common industries that store or use highly hazardous chemicals. Millions more people work, play, shop, and worship in these areas. But who are the people that live daily with the ever- present danger of a chemical disaster?

This report is the first public accounting of the demographic characteristics of populations within the “vulnerability zones” of entire industry sectors that manufacture chemicals, treat water or wastewater, produce bleach, generate electric power, refine petroleum, produce pulp and paper, or otherwise have large numbers of people living in the path of a potential worst -case chemical release. It also shares the stories of some of these communities.

The new research presented in this report finds that residents of chemical facility vulnerability zones are disproportionately Black (African American) or Latino, have higher rates of poverty than the U.S. as a whole, and have lower housing values, incomes, and education levels than the national average. The disproportionate or unequal danger is sharply magnified in the “fenceline”
areas nearest the facilities.

Report: Who’s in Danger? >