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Defenders Magazine
Defenders in Action: Warming to the Task at Hand
Global warming is turning up the heat in Congress. After eight years of denial and delay by the Bush administration and its allies, President Obama and Congress are promising to address climate change head-on.
In the House of Representatives, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), a well-known environmental champion, now chairs the energy and commerce committee, where he has the lead role in crafting legislation to curb emissions, to transform how we produce and use energy and to address global warming's impacts on wildlife and ecosystems. Waxman's committee is expected to produce a global warming bill by Memorial Day. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has voiced her support of his plans and committed to holding a vote on the bill this year.
Across the capitol, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wields the gavel of the all-important environment and public works committee. In early February, she released principles for global warming legislation in the Senate, principles that recognized the need to protect wildlife threatened by global warming. Senate leader Harry Reid recently announced his intention to have a vote on climate legislation by the end of this summer.
"We applaud President Obama, Rep. Waxman, and Sen. Boxer for their strong commitment to address global warming without any more delays," says Robert Dewey, Defenders' vice president for government relations. "These leaders have also recognized that solving global warming necessitates both reducing emissions and addressing global warming's harmful impacts on wildlife and the natural ecosystems that sustain us all."
As a leader in trying to find solutions to global warming, Defenders has produced a groundbreaking report, Beyond Cutting Emissions: Protecting Wildlife and Ecosystems in a Warming World, outlining global warming's threats to the natural world and providing policy recommendations to address these challenges. More than 200 leading scientists, including Thomas Lovejoy and E.O. Wilson, sent a letter to President Obama endorsing the report's findings.
"These statements are coming not a moment too soon," says Dewey. "Global warming's impacts are being observed around the globe and so far this decade, emissions, warming and impacts, such as ice melt and sea-level rise, have all been more severe and quick than scientists had predicted."
Read the report and learn more about the impacts of global warming and what you can do to help.
