18 Leading Scientific Organizations Confirm Climate Consensus in Letter to Senators

A few weeks ago, the American Association for the Advancement of Science along with 17 of the country's most esteemed scientific bodies wrote a letter to the Senate describing the scientific consensus that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are changing the climate.

Here's the letter followed by the litany of scientific bodies that signed on to the statement:

Dear Senator:

As you consider climate change legislation, we, as leaders of scientific organizations, write to state the consensus scientific view.

Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver.

These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. Moreover, there is strong evidence that ongoing climate change will have broad impacts on society, including the global economy and on the environment. For the United States, climate change impacts include sea level rise for coastal states, greater threats of extreme weather events, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, urban heat waves, western wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems throughout the country. The severity of climate change impacts is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades. [See Footnote]

If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced. In addition, adaptation will be necessary to address those impacts that are already unavoidable. Adaptation efforts include improved infrastructure design, more sustainable management of water and other natural resources, modified agricultural practices, and improved emergency responses to storms, floods, fires and heat waves.

We in the scientific community offer our assistance to inform your deliberations as you seek to address the impacts of climate change.

FOOTNOTE: The conclusions in this paragraph reflect the scientific consensus represented by, for example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and U.S. Global Change Research Program. Many scientific societies have endorsed these findings in their own statements, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, and American Statistical Association.

The 18 organizations that signed on:

• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Chemical Society
• American Geophysical Union
• American Institute of Biological Sciences
• American Meteorological Society
• American Society of Agronomy
• American Society of Plant Biologists
• American Statistical Association
• Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
• Botanical Society of America
• Crop Science Society of America
• Ecological Society of America
• Natural Science Collections
• Alliance Organization of Biological Field Stations
• Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
• Society of Systematic Biologists
• Soil Science Society of America
• University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

To the dismay of many, the letter received little mainstream press. At a time when fewer people believe immediate action is needed to combat global warming than just a couple year's ago, I suppose that most major news outlets figured they had already covered the "scientific consensus" angle after the IPCC and the USGCRP reports came out. Who care's what the scientists have to say anyways?

Well, I care and I think that the more people understand the current state of climate science the better. One of the major problems with conveying the science behind climate change is that the science is inherently complicated and no matter how much evidence researchers collect, any honest scientist will admit that there will always be a degree of uncertainty in their predictions. So even a "consensus" among scientists grants that their conclusions are not 100% certain. But uncertainty should not preclude action.

To borrow (and elaborate on) an analogy from Al Gore: if you go to 100 doctors and 99 of them agree with high certainty that you have a disease that will severely debilitate you, are you going to listen to the one doctor who is screaming that the others are wrong and the operation will be too expensive? I doubt it.

Forward this letter along to any skeptics you might know - especially policy makers. At this point I'm worried that the people who are still not convinced that we're changing the climate have already closed their minds to reason and scientific evidence. But when 18 highly-respected scientific organizations agree on something, its worth sharing with others.