"...increasingly climate change is affecting everyone's bottom line."
-- Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on the creation and need for the National Climate Service
In this issue:
1) Take Action: Protect Clean Air and Public Health
2) Take Action: Help Support President Obama's Budget!
3) Climate NOAA Launches New Service
4) Polar Bears: Million Dollar Campaign to Question Protections
1) Take Action: Help Our National Forests Survive the Threats of Climate Change
In face of a warming world and unprecedented impacts to our natural heritage, it is more important than ever that we protect the integrity of our forests. The Forest Service is working on a new planning rule for our national forests, which will have a major impact on how our forests are managed for many years to come.
Now is your chance to advocate for John Muir's vision of protecting our national forests from destructive commercial logging.
Submit your comment to the Forest Service and help ensure that we protect the clean air, clean water, and wildlife habitat that our forests provide.
2) Take Action: Support President Obama's Budget!
President Obama's new budget plan maintains funding for the agencies that protect our air, land, and water, renews his call for comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, and ends wasteful giveaways to Big Oil and Big Coal. But these big polluters are already using the same old scare tactics to try and derail the plans to roll back taxpayer funded giveaways to the industry.
Stand up to Big Oil and other polluters and support President Obama's budget!
The Department of Commerce today announced plans to establish a new Climate Service line office within the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
The National Climate Service, similar to the National Weather Service, will provide the public, businesses, and other government entities with climate forecasts and better access to NOAA's vast store of information and scientific research on climate change.
NOAA also today launched a new web portal, www.climate.gov.
4) Polar Bears: Million Dollar Campaign to Question Protections
A $1.5 million advertising and public relations campaign will soon be underway as part of an effort to weaken the Endangered Species Act. The campaign was approved by the Alaska Legislature, which is concerned that the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species will hurt oil and gas development.
The polar bear was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act last year because of the loss of sea ice as a result of global warming.