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Scientists Weigh in on the Local and Global Impacts of Climate Change

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For all the attention scientists and others have paid to climate change, the issue has hardly registered during this year’s Presidential campaign. Even when it has surfaced in American politics, the debate is often not about what to do about it but whether it exists at all.

Doctor Ben Santer is an atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and has recently begun traveling to the Juneau Icefield in Alaska to examine, first-hand, the impact of climate change. He says the science is irrefutable – climate change is happening. 

"We understand that human activities - primarily the burning of fossil fuels - have elevated levels of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases by about 40% in the case of carbon dioxide," he explains. "And we understand that that's led to warming of the Earth's surface, of the oceans, of the atmosphere. And we understand that left unchecked, this increase in heat-trapping green house gases will have very very serious consequences for life on our planet."

Santer joined 374 other members of the National Academies of Science to call on policymakers to acknowledge and work to reverse human-caused climate change.

"To me, if you have that understanding, you can't remain silent...This is not a conspiracy - this is our understanding. You gotta use your voice," he says.

While climate change naysayers did not respond to the the National Academies of Science's letter, Santer describes the overall response as  "terrific" and "gratifying." He says recent coverage in the The New Yorker and The Atlantic helped to set the record straight on the reality of warming, the human contributions, and the consequences of U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.

 "We ignore (climate change) at our peril," Santer says. "As a country, as a world, we can't afford to embrace ignorance with open arms. We all lose if that happens."

The Juneau Icefield Research Project has been in existence since the late 1940s according to Ben Santer, but Lake Effect contributor George Stone says you don’t have to look that far to see solid – or liquid – evidence of the climate change.

"Ice fishing is a very popular sport (here in Wisconsin). The season of freeze up, that is the time between the first freezing of the lakes in the fall and the first thawing of the lakes in the spring, is getting shorter and shorter and shorter," he says.

The popular winter activity is just one example of how the latest national data translates to our daily lives. The Climate and Health project from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records everything from from the changing growing seasons,  habitat zones in the U.S., and the impact on agriculture and water supply. 

"We need to pay attention, it's a serious problem. We can't just ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist," says Stone. 

Both Stone and atmospheric scientist Ben Santer say climate change is not a hoax, but an uncomfortable fact.

1025b.mp3
Lake Effect's Mitch Teich with climate change contributor George Stone.

Audrey is a WUWM host and producer for Lake Effect.
Bonnie North
Bonnie joined WUWM in March 2006 as the Arts Producer of the locally produced weekday magazine program Lake Effect.