It's past time for U.S. leaders to listen to scientists on climate change

Over the weekend, The San Francisco Chronicle published this op-ed by my colleagues, Dr. Heidi Cullen, director of communications and strategic initiatives for the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and Aimee David, ocean conservation policy director for the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Making a strong case that the ocean should take the center in our climate conversation—just on the heels of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate—the piece could not be more timely.  

But it echoes themes from what we knew about climate change decades ago, and outlines in grim detail the present-day consequences of our failure to act.

Almost 30 years ago, when I joined the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation as a fellow, our Chairman, Sen. Fritz Hollings of South Carolina, had successfully led enactment of the bipartisan Senate bill that became “The Global Change Research Act of 1990.”

The bill’s simple idea: Top scientists from around the U.S. would produce periodic syntheses of the scope and impacts of climate change on all 50 states. These “National Assessment” reports, based on the latest scientific studies, could help policymakers create informed response strategies. The scientists delivered the first National Assessment in 2001, “Climate Change Impacts on the United States.”

The report predicted climate change would lead to sea-level rise, coral bleaching, coastal disruption, heat waves and fisheries impacts—as well as some wild-card consequences. 

“There are also very likely to be unanticipated impacts of climate change during the 21st century,” the report stated. “Such ‘surprises’ may stem from unforeseen changes in the physical climate system, such as major alterations in ocean circulation, cloud distribution, or storms; and unpredicted biological consequences of these physical climate changes, such as massive dislocations of species or pest outbreaks. In addition, unexpected social or economic changes, including major shifts in wealth, technology, or political priorities, could affect our ability to respond to climate change.”

Subsequent updates from U.S. scientists have been increasingly specific about the environmental and societal impacts of climate change, thanks to advances in data collection and computer simulations. In September 2019, an international scientific report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reinforced what the scientific community had been warning us about for decades, and placed a spotlight on impacts on our ocean. 

Climate change jeopardizes everything the ocean does for humanity: regulating our planet’s weather and climate systems, providing our seafood, buffering our coasts from intensifying storms and supporting our coastal economies. 

If our federal leaders had taken bold action in response to the National Assessments created under the U.S. Global Change Research Act, or been more responsive to the international scientific community’s findings compiled by the IPCC, the situation today might not be so dire. In fact, scientists have been sounding a warning on climate change for more than 50 years: In 1965, a federal science advisory committee sent President Lyndon Johnson a report that warned of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

If we don’t take ambitious climate action now, what will we say looking back on this moment in 20 years? The report makes clear that things can get much worse if leaders here and around the world don't act quickly to bring down emissions, transition to a clean-energy economy and mitigate for the impacts underway.

It’s a reminder that after asking for information from climate experts, leaders must listen to those findings and craft responsive policy. All leaders, local to global, should work across the aisle to reverse the negative trends, reduce emissions and protect the ocean that sustains us all.