The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) (click here) was established in 1990 to “assist the Nation and the world to understand, assess, predict, and respond to human-induced and natural processes of global change.” A key responsibility for the program is to conduct National Climate Assessments (NCAs) every 4 years. These assessments are intended to inform the nation about “observed changes in climate, the current status of the climate, and anticipated trends for the future.” The USGCRP hopes that government entities—from federal agencies to small municipalities, citizens, communities, and business—will rely on these assessments of climate-related risks for planning and decision making. As the USGCRP works on the next NCA, the Board on Environmental Change and Society and the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate held a workshop to helps the USGCRP develop clearer ways to describe the risks associated with climate change within the NCA process, particularly including the societal risks and not primarily the biophysical effects that have been observed and projected for the future.
...established in 1990 to “assist the Nation...not the petroleum industry!
The petroleum industry is treating the American people as stupid and unable to discern their needs without the dangers of petroleum industry emissions. They are no different than the tobacco industry and the deaths they caused. Dead people can't complain.
The scientists in the USA and across this world have diligently taken on the direly important task of understanding and warning about a planetary issue. They did what they should have done and they are the moral voices we should all be listening to.
