Considering a Global Warming Wildlife Survival Bill

Considering a Global Warming Wildlife Survival Bill



October 2007

 Calling global warming the single 
greatest threat to the world’s natural environment, U.S. Senator Sheldon 
Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, today announced new legislation 
laying the groundwork for a national strategy to address the impacts of 
climate change on America’s wildlife. 
The bill is the first of its kind and includes components for the most 
imperiled plants and animals in the United States. It would convene 
regional scientific discussions and a National Academy of Sciences panel 
to examine the impacts of climate change on endangered, threatened, and 
otherwise imperiled species and recommend action. 
Senator Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Senate 
Committee on the Environment and Public Works, will be an original 
cosponsor of the bill. 
A member of the committee, Whitehouse said global warming has already 
begun to have a severe and lasting impact on wildlife populations and 
marine ecosystems in Rhode Island and around the world. 

"As the waters of Narragansett Bay grow warmer, cold-water fish species 
with high commercial value, like winter flounder, have been replaced by 
warmer-water species, like scup, whose value to our fishermen is lower," 
Whitehouse said. "Melting sea ice in Greenland is pushing polar bears 
closer to inhabited villages in search of food." 
"As we work to mitigate the causes of global warming, we must also take 
urgent action to address its effects on wildlife, oceans, and other 
natural systems on which we all depend," he said. 
A report released in February by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change, shows that the world faces an average temperature rise of 
around 3°C, or 5.4°F, this century, if greenhouse gas emissions continue 
to rise at their current pace and are allowed to double their 
pre-industrial level. 
The report, agreed upon by governments of all industrial democracies, says 
that warming during the last 100 years was 0.74°C, with most of the 
warming occurring during the past 50 years. The warming per decade for the 
next 20 years is projected to be 0.2°C per decade. 
The Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act would direct the federal 
government to develop coordinated national strategies to identify, 
monitor, and protect or restore wildlife populations and habitats that are 
likely to be harmed by global warming; and to protect, maintain, and 
restore coastal and marine ecosystems to help them better withstand ocean 
acidification, sea level rise, and other stresses related to climate 
change. 
The bill would create advisory boards, with members appointed by the 
president of the National Academy of Sciences, and a new National Global 
Warming and Wildlife Science Center within the U.S. Geological Survey, to 
conduct research and provide scientific and technical advice on strategies 
to help wildlife, oceans, and coastal ecosystems adapt to global warming. 
A special panel would also be convened to look specifically at the impacts 
of climate change on endangered species. 
The bill would provide grants and other federal resources to help states, 
territories, and Indian tribes study wildlife, oceans, and habitats that 
may be affected by global warming, and plan and implement programs to 
mitigate the effects of climate change on these populations. 
The environmental and faith-based communities tend to support the measure. 

"Senator Whitehouse and Senator Boxer are taking a critical first step in 
protecting our most imperiled species, and we applaud their leadership on 
this issue," said Susan Holmes of the public interest law firm 
Earthjustice. "We cannot sit back and allow animals like the polar bear to 
disappear forever." 
"This is critical legislation," said Peter Illyn, director of the 
evangelical Christian conservation group Restoring Eden, which supports 
the bill. "Faithful and wise stewardship requires the objectivity of sound 
science coupled with the moral imperatives of faith. Protecting the 
diversity and fruitfulness of the web of life is a sacred trust and we 
will reap the benefits or suffer the consequences of the choices we make." 

"Climate change has made most of our plans for recovering at-risk species 
obsolete," said Dr. Dennis Murphy, a professor at the University of Nevada 
and member of the National Research Council's Board on Environmental 
Studies and Toxicology. "In the face of novel and still mostly 
unpredictable environmental changes ahead, this bill will be crucial to 
our ability to respond to the needs of imperiled species." 
Global warming is a major cause of species extinction. Hundreds of plants 
and animals, from grizzly bears to coral reefs, are already declining due 
to global warming, and the latest report from the UN Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change estimates that between 20 and 30 percent of animal 
and plant species face a risk of extinction if global warming continues 
unabated. 

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