“I don’t believe it”: Key Messages from the Fourth National Climate Assessment
Let’s say you go to your doctor and she tells you that you have cancer. She says it is metastasizing but you can treat it with an aggressive course of action.
Naturally, you want a second opinion, and so you go to a cancer specialist. They tell you the same thing. Perhaps a third opinion wouldn’t hurt?
So, you seek out another expert oncologist who comes back with the same prognosis and recommends you begin treatment right away. But, what if these doctors were wrong?
You insist you need more evidence before taking action. So, you seek a fourth opinion…and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh, and so on. In fact, you go out and enlist a panel of 100 expert oncologists to take you through more batteries of tests and issue a series of written reports to compile all the data and present their findings.
As it turns out, 97 out of those 100 agree that you have cancer and that the sooner you begin treatment the better your chances of overcoming the disease. The consensus reached by these experts is driven by myriad tests that rule out other possibilities one by one until they reach a consilience of scientific evidence.
At this point, would you still ignore the evidence and continue to say, “I don’t believe it”?
Replace cancer with climate change and oncologists with climate scientists in this scenario and you begin to approach our current situation with the release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) by the White House last Friday.
Thirteen federal agencies — led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and including the Department of Defense and NASA — spent the past two years working with 300 leading scientists to arrive at the assessment. What makes this report particularly notable is the fact that is was released by the very White House that has “taken aggressive steps that will increase emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases,” taking us 180 degrees in the opposite direction we need to go to alleviate our predicament.
NCA4 also comes on the heels of a special report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in October, which echoes the warnings issued by the US Government in NCA4.
Plus, the signs of climate change are now all around us — personally impacting many Americans. Just ask those in California who lived through yet another “most deadly and destructive” wildfire in the state’s history. Or those in North Carolina who suffered through the flooding of Hurricane Florence.
The risks are here and we must heed the evidence to come up with sensible policy responses to manage those risks. Why? Because the consequences will only grow with inaction, costing more money and more lives the longer we wait. The prudent course of action? Act now.
The NCA4 report should be required reading for any political or business leader interested in taking an evidence-based approach to managing risks in the twenty-first century. But if you don’t have time to read the full report, here’s an annotated summary of its key take-away messages.
Key Message #1 — Communities. Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth.
Key Message #2 — Economy. Without substantial and sustained global mitigation and regional adaptation efforts, climate change is expected to cause growing losses to American infrastructure…and impede the rate of economic growth…
Key Message #3 — Interconnected Impacts. Climate change affects the natural, built, and social systems we rely on individually and through their connections to one another. These interconnected systems are increasingly vulnerable to cascading impacts that are often difficult to predict, threatening essential services within and beyond the Nation’s borders.
Key Message #4 — Actions to Reduce Risks. Communities, governments, and businesses are working to reduce risks from and costs associated with climate change by taking action to lower greenhouse gas emissions and implement adaptation strategies. While mitigation and adaptation efforts have expanded substantially in the last four years, they do not yet approach the scale considered necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health over the coming decades.
Key Message #5 — Water. The quality and quantity of water available for use by people and ecosystems across the country are being affected by climate change, increasing risks and costs to agriculture, energy production, industry, recreation, and the environment.
Key Message #6 — Health. Impacts from climate change on extreme weather and climate-related events, air quality, and the transmission of disease through insects and pests, food, and water increasingly threaten the health and well-being of the American people, particularly populations that are already vulnerable.
Key Message #7 — Indigenous Peoples. Climate change increasingly threatens Indigenous communities’ livelihoods, economies, health, and cultural identities by disrupting interconnected social, physical, and ecological systems.
Key Message #8 — Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services. Ecosystems and the benefits they provide to society are being altered by climate change, and these impacts are projected to continue. Without substantial and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, transformative impacts on some ecosystems will occur; some coral reef and sea ice ecosystems are already experiencing such transformational changes.
Key Message #9 — Agriculture and Food. Rising temperatures, extreme heat, drought, wildfire on rangelands, and heavy downpours are expected to increasingly disrupt agricultural productivity in the United States. Expected increases in challenges to livestock health, declines in crop yields and quality, and changes in extreme events in the United States and abroad threaten rural livelihoods, sustainable food security, and price stability.
Key Message #10 — Infrastructure. Without adaptation, climate change will continue to degrade infrastructure performance … impacts that threaten our economy, national security, essential services, and health and well-being.
