CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION: PLANETARY IMPERATIVE AND GEOSCIENCE RESPONSIBILITY

Evidence confirming the reality of anthropogenic global warming and its manifold impacts has surpassed the standard of reasonable doubt. Rapid changes in atmospheric chemistry are elevating ecosystem stress, including ocean acidification that endangers the marine food web. These anthropogenic impacts threaten dramatic expansion of Earth’s sixth great extinction episode. Climate perturbations also threaten vital water and agricultural resources and coastal habitats for human populations, thereby exacerbating problems of poverty and population growth and undermining political stability both regionally and globally. They may constitute an irreversible threat to the survival of human civilization as we know it. As human activities relentlessly drive up greenhouse gas concentrations, forcing our planet’s climate system toward -- and perhaps beyond -- irreversible tipping points, the challenge to reduce these dangerous emissions is ever more compelling.

In its position statement on climate change, GSA concurs with assessments by the National Academies of Science (2005), the National Research Council (2006), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) that global climate has warmed and that human activities (mainly greenhouse-gas emissions) account for most of the warming since the middle 1900s. Among GSA’s recommendations are (1) public policy should include effective strategies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and (2) comprehensive local, state, national and international planning is needed to address challenges posed by future climate change.

Mitigation of climate change is now a planetary imperative of the highest priority. The international community has failed to reach agreement on a framework for climate change mitigation beyond 2012. Action at every level requires political will enabled by public understanding of the problem. Climate and energy literacy are essential to reaching the levels of resource commitment and economic transformation that this challenge demands. It is incumbent upon the scientific and academic communities -- especially in the geosciences -- to embrace responsibility and assume leadership in providing clear communication of the magnitude and immediacy of the climate challenge to the society that supports them!