1997 FWOC Resolution
No. 1:
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EFFORTS TO REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING
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In 1995 the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations
sponsored panel comprising 2,500 of the world's top climate scientists,
issued a report for the first time recognizing that human activity is
at least partly to blame for the planetary warming that is
occurring. The warming to come is expected to match the change
in average global temperature since the last ice age. It is not
the degree, but the rapidity of climate change that determines the
severity of the threat: the change will occur more rapidly by a factor
of 10. Though nature and humans have adapted to many changes over
the ages, the faster that change occurs, the harder it is to adapt
successfully and the greater the chance that natural and human systems
will break down.
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To illustrate the problem,
the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans,
sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and
the University of Washington, is investigating the Northwest's natural
climatic variability and how the region's hydrology, marine ecosystem,
forests and coastal areas will be affected by climate change. The
probable impacts include more winter rain rather than snow resulting in
a month earlier, heavier, spring runoff coupled with lower summer and
fall flows which will dramatically affect salmon migration. More
extreme storms will increase windstorms and wildfires damaging
forests. Climate change will change forest species composition
and range.
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The changes to other
global ecosystems may differ, but the speed at which these changes will
occur will be very damaging to both humans and the rest of nature.
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global climate change will wreak on the existing natural world.
The Federation of Western
Outdoor Clubs supports efforts to reduce the amount of global warming
gases added to the world's atmosphere. The efforts include the
development and use of renewable energy and alternatives to fossil
fuel for transportation and heating. (See also 1995 Resolution
No. 26 on Global Warming.) |
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F.W.O.C. member clubs and members are
urged to send this resolution to their State Governor, Senators,
Congressional representatives and the Secretary of the Department of
Energy.
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