Audubon View
By John Flicker

This year’s Christmas Bird Count included eastern bluebirds in Ontario and flocks of snow geese north of the St. Lawrence River. American woodcock were spotted in full display in Rhode Island. These unusual sightings in the middle of winter can be a treat for birders, but we’re not happy. We know they are probably signs of climate change.

The Arbor Day Foundation recently published a revised map of the vegetation zones in the United States. Since 1990 most zones have moved significantly northward, in some cases more than 100 miles, because average annual temperatures are rising.

Magnolias in Manhattan might appeal to some people, but not everything can easily move north and adapt. Polar bears, for example, have become the first species proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act because of global warming. The Arctic ice cap is melting. Without the ice polar bears need to reach their food sources, they will drown or starve—and face extinction.

Carbon dioxide emitted from burning fossil fuels builds up in the atmosphere and can stay there for centuries. As concentrations increase, so do average global temperatures. Because there is a lag time between when we burn fossil fuels and when we feel the consequences, it may be too late to stop adding more CO2 before we start feeling the worst consequences. It might already be too late for polar bears. Even with no additional greenhouse-gas pollution, current accumulations may have already set in motion a cycle of warming that will melt the remaining Arctic ice by the end of this century.

This is not a message of despair but of hope. Scientists agree that the most severe consequences can still be averted. But there isn’t much time. One of the nation’s top climate scientists, James Hansen, predicts that we have about 10 years to significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from current levels. If we don’t, Hansen said in a recent National Academy of Sciences paper, approximately half of all plants and animals may face extinction by the middle of this century.

How accurate is this shocking prediction? I don’t know, but nearly all of Dr. Hansen’s predictions about climate change for the past 30 years are turning out to be true. And with so much at stake, I prefer giving our planet the benefit of the doubt.

While climate change is a global problem that ultimately requires a global solution, it won’t happen without leadership from the United States. We are both the world’s richest nation and the world’s largest greenhouse-gas polluter. If we don’t act, every other nation has an excuse not to act. We need to send a message to members of Congress and the Bush administration that global warming must be their top priority. They need to move beyond symbolic legislation that sets vague goals for the distant future and instead establish real reduction targets for greenhouse-gas pollution now. For adddtional information on how you can help, visit www.audubon.org.—John Flicker