On May 5, the National Climate Assessment published its third report, “Climate Change Impacts in the United States.” The report, assembled by more than 300 experts, distills scientific peer-reviewed research, technical reports and other sources. Scientists have documented that climate change — happening now at accelerating rates — is caused by human activities, leading to extensive and damaging impacts that the American people need to prepare for and respond to.
The critical question is: Will the Congress of the United States respond actively to the report rather than do nothing, as it has in the past? I am not sure. Shortly after the National Climate Assessment was released, ABC News asked Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida and Republican presidential hopeful, if he agreed with the report. His answer was: “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy.”
I know Sen. Rubio to be a savvy politician who is very aware of what he says publicly, and here he is reflecting an ideological position held by many of his constituents. However, I believe him to be wrong on two counts.
Firstly, the assessment reports the consensus view of 97 percent of the thousands of climate scientists practicing today. The basic science of greenhouse gases has been understood for over 100 years and has been verified countless times in a wide array of experiments. The idea that man, through the emission of greenhouse gases, is causing the climate to change is no longer a debatable issue. It is true.
Secondly, the National Climate Assessment — and, for that matter, the scientific community — is not proposing the passing of any specific laws. It is simply relaying the state of the Earth as it exists today and how it will exist in the future, depending on human actions.
In 1989, then-President George H. W. Bush established a presidential initiative, mandated by Congress, that led to the creation of the Global Change Research Act of 1990. A function described in Section 106 of the act requires that an assessment report that “integrates, evaluates, and interprets” the scientific research on climate change, and analyzes these scientific findings as well as current trends in global change for the “subsequent 25 to 100 years” shall be submitted to the president and Congress on a periodic basis.
That is exactly what this report does. It is a statement of the scientific findings on the state of climate change in the United States, summarized in a way that is accessible to its intended audience: the president, members of Congress, and the American people. It contains no policy recommendations. As a matter of fact, from its inception the Committee on Earth Science, publisher of the assessment, agreed that they would not recommend any specific policy, but deal only with the issues of science that would inform the appropriate policymakers.
Science by its very nature is not political. It may appear to lead to specific actions depending on predictions about the future, but the laws of nature are not ideologically biased. At times, when science is interpreted in order to inform policy, it may be misused in ways that conform to or contradict the tenets of one or another interest group. Or an interest group may choose to use only part of scientific results in order to support a particular stance. The wide range of future outcomes contained in this report can be confusing to both policy groups and the general public. It can, in some, lead to skepticism or denial of the process, while others may focus in on one or another scenario that fits most closely with their preconceptions.
If you don’t like the message, don’t shoot the messenger. There are more viable and rational ways of using the message to effect a more livable future, rather than continuing with “business as usual” or worse. It is up to the policymakers of the United States as well as the rest of the world to determine what the final outcome will be. It is up to the American people to inform themselves and then vote into power those who have the ability and desire to understand the seriousness of the changing climate and are willing to work together to confront it.
Ron Sass, Ph.D., is the fellow in global climate change at the Baker Institute and the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Natural Sciences emeritus at Rice University. He consulted for the Environmental Protection Agency and advised the United Nations Development Programme Interregional Research Program on methane emission from rice fields in Asia. His work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change helped establish guidelines and values for national greenhouse gas inventories throughout the world.
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