If climate change is a hoax, why are we preparing for it?
Today, the Interior Department released a draft plan on climate change adaptation for fish, wildlife and plants, including goals on reducing climate change vulnerability and strategies available to the energy and transportation industries to help species adapt.
The main purpose of the report is not to prove the reality of climate change, but rather to demonstrate the ways climate change is already impacting our natural resources and environment and provide a strategy for responding and adapting to these impacts.
View the National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy
In a statement accompanying the draft plan release, U.S. Interior Department Deputy Secretary David Hayes said rising sea levels, warming temperatures and other climate issues are having an effect on everything from wildlife to natural resources.
“The impacts of climate change are already here and those who manage our landscapes are already dealing with them.”
The report also makes clear that we can longer just focus on curbing climate change.
While addressing the causes of climate change (i.e., mitigation) is absolutely necessary, mitigation will not be sufficient to prevent major impacts due to the amount of GHGs that have already been emitted into the global atmosphere.
Meanwhile, congressional action on controlling air pollutants continues to be thwarted by a well funded industry campaign to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that climate change is a real phenomena.