President Bush, in another stalling tactic today, called for international meetings on global warming that would not produce results until after the presidential election in 2008, in the final months of a lame-duck presidency.

This is not progress; this is politics at its worst. It’s a little like Lucy holding out the football for Charlie Brown. If President Bush were serious about this plan, he should have offered it six years ago when he rejected the Kyoto treaty, instead of walking away from the negotiating table altogether.

Another ill-timed meeting postpones needed action and just muddies the waters for the next President. The Bush administration has opposed efforts in Congress to tackle global warming, and now the President is interfering with international progress on a planetary climate crisis. An international negotiation process is already underway - the Framework Convention on Climate Change. President Bush can and must return to the negotiating table at any time.

The writing is on the wall that, once President Bush is out of office, America will move forward with a strong plan of action on global warming. Twenty major U.S. companies have joined with National Wildlife Federation and other conservation groups to call for a 60-80 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century. And the major bipartisan initiatives in Congress would achieve similar emission reduction targets.

The President’s announcement comes in the face of pressure on global warming from other nations ahead of next week’s G8 meeting. The European Union is pushing for the G8 nations to acknowledge that we need to act quickly to cut global warming pollution and keep further temperatures from exceeding a threshold of four degrees Fahrenheit. This goal can be achieved by starting promptly to cut emissions and achieving a reduction of up to 80 percent by mid-century.

NOTE: Most remember Rachael Carson for her famous book, Silent Spring warning of the dangers of DDT and other persistent and bio-accumulating chemicals that were amplifying up the food chain. Without question, Rachael Carson’s warnings saved the bald eagle, peregrine falcon and many other birds from certain extinction. However, our collective memory of Rachael’s contribution must be re-examined on this her 100th birthday in light of her other early warnings about global warming.

Looking out of my window, I can see down a long forested valley to a far-away place appropriately called "wildwood" where nine decades ago, Rachael Carson and her mother Maria Carson roamed the Pine Creek bottoms, explored rock outcrops and woodlands listened to birds and discovered spring wildflowers and insects. Those hours in the fields of western Pennsylvania profoundly influenced one of the 20th century’s greatest women by fostering a rich sense of wonder and profound love of nature.

Rachael would return to her wildwood playground as a shy but focused college student with her professor Mary Scott Skinker who taught Introductory Biology at the Pennsylvania College for Women. Rachael loved roaming wildwood with her mother but a nature-study with a trained biologist like Skinker fed Rachael’s unquenchable curiosity and transformed her life forever.

It was Skinker who knew raw potential when she saw it in this reserved student. Ignoring Rachael’s meager financial status and gender, Skinker encouraged Rachael to switch her major from the safe field of literature where employment could be easily found to the nearly forbidden waters of then male-dominated field of science. Skinker and Carson shared a passion for nature and soon developed a lifelong mentor and protégée relationship committed to " the deepest well-being of each other" according to Carson biographer, Linda Lear.

Rachael graduated magna cum laude with a degree in biology from what is now Chatham University. She later finished a master’s degree in zoology from John Hopkins but insurmountable family and financial obligations during the Depression prevented her from seeking a doctorate. Carson went to work as a government scientist for the Bureau of Fisheries where she continued to research and write about fish and wildlife. For the next seventeen years, Rachael held various positions of increasing responsibilities with the Fish and Wildlife Service where she developed a rich understanding of the sea and a deep concern about the many human impacts on nature.

In 1938, Rachael Carson attended the North American Wildlife Conference and National Wildlife Federation convention in Baltimore where she heard the inspiring speech of the Federation’s first president Ding Darling who issued his famed warning of massive wildlife and habitat loss. It was only days after that exposure to Ding, that Rachael Carson wrote her first conservation concerns for the Richmond Times Dispatch Sunday Magazine.

Rachael knew that nature could be amazingly resilient, capable of adapting to constantly changing ecological conditions and that wildlife habitats unencumbered by damaging human interventions are inherently durable and sustainable. But their resiliency is limited and was reaching the breaking point during the dust bowl years.

From her years at the Fish and Wildlife Service, Rachael understood that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between the quality of our stewardship and the fruitfulness of all living resources. Fish and wildlife have always been the earliest biological indicators warning us of failed stewardship performance. They are an important early warning system-our canary in the mine. Throughout her life, Rachael amplified the canary’s voice so we could all hear it.

Rachael wrote numerous conservation articles and completed three compelling books, Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us and The Edge of the Sea sharing her love of nature and especially her fascination with the sea.

Forever listening to birds and watching the movements of fish, Rachael discovered that they were shifting from their historic ranges all over the world and moving quite strikingly and consistently toward the poles. In her second and wildly successful book published in 1951 entitled, The Sea Around Us, Rachael wrote a chapter entitled: "The Global Thermostat" detailing the changes seen in nature concluding with, "now in our own lifetime we are witnessing a startling alteration of climate…" Because Rachael was listening, she was able to faithfully record fish and bird migratory changes and melting glaciers and rightfully associated them with a warming climate. Vogue Magazine also published this first chapter detailing early indications from nature of our changing climate.

Rachael speculated on possible root causes of the climate warming since she did not know that an earlier scientist named Svante Arrhenius had already published this clear warning based on his experiments with carbon dioxide: "We are evaporating our coal mines into the air, adding so much carbon dioxide into the air as to change the transparency of the atmosphere. With each passing year, air must be trapping more and more dark (infrared) rays more and more earthlight. Eventually this change might very well heat the planet to heights outside all human experience." Rachael did not have access to Arrhenius’ warning perhaps because it was published in the April, 1896 edition Philosophical Magazine.

Rachael amplified her observations of a warming climate when she wrote her third book, The Edge of the Sea published in 1955, "This new distribution is, of course, related to the widespread change of climate that seems to have set in about the beginning of the century and is well recognized—a general warming-up noticed first in the arctic regions, then in subarctic, and now in the temperate areas of northern states." By watching nature’s many responses to climate forcing changes, Rachael unknowingly pegged the beginning of the global warming pattern to the rise of carbon-based industries of the late 19th and early 20th century and accurately described its progression from poles to the equator.

Rachael’s warnings should have triggered increased scientific inquiry to determine the cause of this documented trend but it did not; perhaps because something else was going on that temporarily masked the early global warming that Rachael saw.

As a cheap way to rid towns like Rachael’s hometown of Springdale and nearby Pittsburgh of their soot-filled air, tall smoke stakes were added to hundreds if not thousands of power plants around the world to blow fine acid-forming and light-deflecting particulates high away from nearby towns and cities and into the sky where they lingered long enough to block and reflect incoming sunlight triggering a temporary and slight "global cooling." Tall stacks were the primary tool used for dispersing pollution for another thirty to forty years. For a time, their ubiquitous presence masked a much more dangerous and long-lasting global warming.

Ironically, air pollution laws written in the seventies through the nineties required the abatement of these dangerous fine particles that damaged lungs and acidified forests, lakes and streams as they fell from the sky long distances from their sources. Carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases have long since overtaken the decreasing role that particulates play as climate-cooling agents.

For the past thirty years, a clear and persistent warming trend has been fueled by nearly a trillion tons of human-induced carbon dioxide emissions into the biosphere that more than offset the scatter light of remaining particle pollution.

Having warned us about global warming in two separate books, Rachael Carson went on to write Silent Spring. Published in 1962, it was the last of Rachael’s extraordinary nature books. For her thorough scholarship (55 pages of references) and skillful treatment of the complex biochemistry of DTT and other long-lasting chlorinated hydrocarbons and their pathways in nature, Rachael became an immediate target of those whose profits would be at risk if DDT were regulated. Industry-funded critics developed a strategy against Rachael that was carefully documented in Frank Graham’s book Since Silent Spring.

Play up the positives:

DDT controls malaria-bearing mosquitoes and the world would be over-run without DDT.

Create corporate-sponsored surrogate organizations and fund science critics:

The "Nutrition Foundation" issued a rebuttal to Silent Spring and Rachael was demonized by chemical company funded critics who were encouraged to position her not as "a scientist but rather as a fanatic defender of the cult of the balance of nature."

Recruit uninformed allies:

The American Medical Association News actually urged doctors to contact the chemical trade association to answer patients’ questions about pesticides. Advertisers pulled their sponsorship of the CBS special on Rachael as thousands of letters poured in.

Distort the me ssage then attack the fabrications:

Rachel never called for an immediate or total ban of DDT. Instead, she proposed a thoughtful approach to wean us away from its dependency and suggested what is now called integrated pest management. Yet, Dr. William J. Darby published a widely reprinted article in the Chemical and Engineering News inventing and then refuting statements that Rachael never made. To this day, critics still say that Rachael wanted to ban DDT ignoring every other consideration.

Attack and invalidate the Messenger:

Rachael was accused of profiteering with her writing. She was called an "emotional woman" and many other derogatory slurs. They even tried to make her look a hypocrite; after all, she ate food that had been grown with the use of pesticides. When asked what she ate, her response was food contaminated with "chlorinated hydrocarbons, just as everybody else does." Asked in a CBS television interview about whether all of these attacks upset her, Rachel, then frail from late stage breast cancer simply responded, "No, I just ask myself, who speaks? And why?"

The same techniques are widely used today to invalidate the messenger and confuse the public about global warming. Examine recent attacks against the IPCC scientists, against former Vice President Al Gore, and even against conservative evangelicals like Richard Cizik who are warning us about global warming and a clear repeating pattern emerges.

Taking a lesson from Rachael Carson, we too, can learn a lot from fish and wildlife if we are willing to get back in touch with nature and to listen carefully. Polar bears are calling... Are we listening?

It’s not too late. If we restore habitats, eliminate greenhouse pollution and better manage our harvest from the seas, the diversity of native species and relative abundance of wildlife can still go back up.

However, if we continue to degrade the world through global warming pollution and habitat destruction, the number and diversity of native fish, wildlife and plant species will soon go down. Several published science studies, now endorsed by the 4 th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warn that misdirected human activities are impoverishing ecosystems around the world and when amplified by global warming could lead to nearly a million extinctions in the next few decades.

Rachael left us with two important questions to ponder as we formulate our own opinions about global warming: Who speaks? And why?

Global warming is the defining issue of the 21st century, and I am tremendously pleased that Senator Coleman (R-MN) is going to be a leader in advancing solutions.   I am particularly pleased that Senator Coleman will be a champion for the poor, and I share his goals of making sure that any climate bill is fair and protects the most vulnerable among us.

The Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act is a bipartisan plan that combines the best of what scientists tell us is needed to solve global warming, with the best of what industry tells us is the most cost-effective way to get it done.

To limit global warming, we must start now and put ourselves on track to reduce pollution by two percent each and every year, 20 percent a decade, ultimately cutting pollution by 80 percent by mid-century. We can do that, through a commonsense approach such as the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, which Senator Coleman has co-sponsored.

This bill would also open the door for American farmers to be part of the solution to global warming, by giving them a chance to earn income through sequestering plant-based carbon on their land.  It also provides the opportunity to create a new generation of American jobs, based in our heritage of prosperity built on leading invention and technology.  We can export clean energy solutions, instead of importing foreign oil.  

Americans want a new energy future that breaks the nation’s oil addiction, creates more American jobs and develops clean, renewable energy sources here at home that will benefit us all.

Senator Coleman’s leadership is vital to continuing the bipartisan momentum needed to enact this legislation.

Madonna has written an exclusive song for the upcoming Live Earth Concert, which will be an unprecedented event reaching out to 2 billion people on the urgent need to wake up to global warming.  Here are some of the lyrics: 

“Hey you, don’t you give up, it’s not so bad, there’s still a chance for us…

Hey you, just be yourself.  Don’t be so shy.  There’s reasons why it’s hard…

“Keep it together we’ll make it all right…our celebration is going on tonight.

Poets and prophets will envy what we do…This could be good…Hey you.

“Hey you, open your heart, it’s not so strange, you’ve got to change this time…

  Hey you, there on the fence, you’ve got a choice, one day it will make sense…

Keep it together we’ll make it all right…our celebration is going on tonight.

Poets and prophets will envy what we do…This could be good…Hey you.

This speaks to me.  Doesn’t it speak to you?  Hear the full video for a limited time on the Live Earth website at:  http://liveearth.msn.com/green/Madonnadownload

I welcome President Bush’s continued shift on global warming, which was announced yesterday when, after six years of inaction, the President called for regulations to boost fuel economy. This is a welcome sign – it’s better late than never. I’m eagerly awaiting, along with others, more details from the administration on how quickly and boldly they will move on fuel economy standards to make up for lost time. In the meantime, Congress should promptly advance plans to boldly bolster fuel economy while cutting carbon emissions through legislation.

Until consumers have real fuel economy choices in the cars they buy and drive, Americans will be held hostage at the pump by oil companies. Our fuel economy standards have not been seriously updated in decades. Consequently, the average fuel economy of cars sold today is worse than it was during the era of the 8-track tape player. While technological breakthroughs have happened to improve efficiency, they have not been adopted by American manufacturers who have promoted gas guzzlers. What’s missing is the political will to get better designs and technologies off of the engineering drawing board and into driveways on a massive scale.

Yesterday’s announcement from the White House continues a shift in the right direction on global warming, but the President’s proposals have not been drafted and fail to measure up to the urgency of the global warming threat to the future of America’s security, wildlife and economy. The President is dipping a few oars in the water, but he has not fully turned the ship to the right destination.

We need to start now with mandatory programs that guarantee results. We need to set goals to cut actual emissions (not the silly “carbon intensity”) from all sources, including automobiles, by at least 20 percent over the next decade. The President’s plan is neither comprehensive nor adequate.

To limit global warming, we must start now and put ourselves on track to reduce pollution by at least two percent of 2007 emissions each and every year, ultimately cutting pollution by 80 percent by mid-century. We can do that.

America must choose between a fundamentally different planet or a fundamentally different energy future that breaks our oil addiction and aggressively opens the path to clean, safe alternative and renewable sources of fuel.

I look forward to working on a bipartisan basis with Congress to advance effective global warming policies, and to working with the Bush Administration where and when we have common ground.

Recent polls demonstrate that the vast majority of Americans believe global warming is a serious threat and they want our government to act now. Leaders in Congress are already moving on global warming with plans that include binding measures to broadly curb global warming pollution. Time is not on our side. The National Wildlife Federation will be assisting those efforts as our urgent priority.

Rupert Murdoch, a well-known conservative supporter of President George Bush, announced earlier this week that News Corporation is going carbon neutral by 2010.  Murdock is chairman and CEO of News Corporation, a media giant with several business units including Fox News Channel and HarperCollins-the publisher of Crichton’s notorious book presenting global warming as an environmental hoax.

Murdock revealed and detailed a corporate strategy to address energy use and impact on the climate and committed the News Corporation to become carbon neutral by 2010.

In a rather startling speech to employees Murdoch stated:

“If we are to connect with our audiences on this issue, we must first get our own house in order… We have just begun this effort, and we have a long way to go. Our global reach gives us an unprecedented opportunity to inspire action from all corners of the world…The climate problem will not be solved without mass participation by the general public everywhere.”

As announced on News Corporation Launches Global Energy Initiative, the News Corporation’s goals are to reduce its own carbon emissions significantly, offset the remainder, and engage its 47,000 employees and millions of readers and viewers around the world on this issue.   

While I might not agree with many of Fox News editorial positions, I welcome this announcement and encourage the audiences of News Corporation to hold them accountable to this commitment. 

       National Wildlife Federation has joined a powerful group of business, economic and conservation leaders calling for swift and substantial action to confront global warming. Called the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, it includes some names that might surprise you  – General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, John Deere, Marsh and Shell Oil are but a few of the new members who have joined forces to urge the federal government to quickly enact strong legislation to achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

       Why, you might ask, would NWF join a coalition primarily of business interests, many of which are from industries that benefit from a fossil fuel-based world?

       Because the world is changing and our common future hangs in the balance. The leaders of these and other major corporations recognize that global warming is an unprecedented threat to the economy and the environment, and they share my desire for the U.S. to develop common sense solutions to this most uncommon threat – a threat that is the defining issue of the 21^st century.

       Today’s announcement is a major milestone in the effort to confront global warming. With its new members, USCAP companies together have total revenues of $1.7 trillion, a collective workforce of more than 2 million and operations in all 50 states. These leaders have joined the growing clamor from across the country for national legislation using market forces to slow, stop and reverse the growth of global warming pollution. We all agree that Congress must establish mandatory emission targets to reduce U.S.greenhouse gas levels by 10-30 percent below today’s levels within 15 years, and a 60-80 percent reduction by 2050.

       Clearly, global warming has become a top priority in corporate America. USCAP members and other industry leaders know that what’s good for the environment is also good for the economy. 

       I think it bodes well for the future that conservation and business interests are working together to develop the right solutions that protect our children, our energy future and the natural world we all share and cherish.

So the verdict is in – if we start now, we can still stabilize greenhouse gas emissions and avoid catastrophic changes in our climate. So says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its latest report released last week looking at what we must do to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Go to National Wildlife Federation for more information.

It's disconcerting to learn from several press reports that the Bush administration was pushing for last-minute changes to play down the report's conclusion that quick, affordable action can limit the worst effects of global warming. Rather than embrace the report's window of opportunity message, the Bush administration tried to shut the window and draw the shades. 

Global warming is happening now. Our dependency on fossil fuels like oil and coal is causing the problem, and people and wildlife are feeling the heat. We have a clear path to move forward with solutions that will curb rising global warming pollution, but only if we act with leadership and resolve.

Scientists are telling us that we must start reducing global warming pollution immediately to limit further warming. Only by acting now can we prevent catastrophic environmental and economic damage that our children will otherwise face.

America can do this if we set our mind to it.

There can be no question at this point about which pathway we take. To limit global warming, we must start now and put ourselves on track to reduce pollution by two percent each and every year, ultimately cutting pollution by 80 percent by mid-century. We can do that.

America must choose between a fundamentally different planet or a fundamentally different energy future that breaks our oil addiction and aggressively opens the path to clean, safe alternative and renewable sources of fuel. We all have a part to play in making it happen.

     Connection to nature can spark a passion for conservation that lasts a lifetime. And a citizenry literate and educated in conservation education will be equipped to successfully deal with the effects of climate change and the other conservation challenges facing us today. That’s why I was so pleased with the outreach of National Wildlife Federation’s education programs in April. In all, National Wildlife Federation (NWF) reached over 10 million people. Here are some highlights – check out the links for ways you can get involved.

Our National Campus Chill Out Competition results were seen live by 15,000 students, staff and faculty at 424 campus and NGO locations. Chill out kicked off this year by Al Gore is an exciting new contest to demonstrate the best thinking on global warming solutions and how colleges and universities can set examples for energy conservation and low carbon innovations. View the webcast: http://www.nwf.org/campusecology/ChillOutcontest.cfm

NWF’s Children's Magazines were nominated for 13 national awards including Your Big Backyard as best children’s publication in the US by the prestigious Association of Educational Publishers. Our magazines reach an average of 3 million young readers each month. http://www.edpress.org/awards/daa.htm

The SpringWatch USA series premier on Animal Planet was viewed by 1.7 million people - this AP/NWF collaboration starring Jeff Corwin, Philppe Cousteau, NWF’s David Mizejewski and Vanessa Garnick. It focuses on the emergence of Spring and its effects on wildlife and nature. http://animal.discovery.com/tv/spring-watch/spring-watch.html

The launch of our weekly Weather and Wildlife Report premiered on the Weather Channel - taken in by 500,000 viewers.

An NWF version of the feature Film documentary “The Great Warming” was released on DVD - hosted by Alanis Morrisette and Keanu Reeves, this film features students from our NWF Detroit Earth Tomorrow Program. https://www.thegreatwarming.com/orderform.php

We reached the 80,000 backyard habitat mark. NWF’s Backyard Habitat Program was featured on Martha Stewart Show - seen by 3 million Americans. Martha’s farm was certified on air as an NWF backyard habitat. Ecorazzi report: http://www.ecorazzi.com/?p=2309

The NWF Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (AYEA) program received a Presidential award - The President’s Environmental Youth Awards for 2007 bestowed since 1971.

National Wildlife Week kicked off with 200 NWF-sponsored youth volunteer projects - several thousand young people did across America signed up for habitat restoration projects.

NWF April 28-29 National Wildlife Watch is attracting new participants -- linked on the Springwatch USA Animal Planet Website and supported by the National Science Foundation, our citizen science event is developing new support nationwide. http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlifeweek/

Our 2007 Great American Backyard Campout participation drive began - the website is up and running and we are shooting for 100,000 plus campers this year. http://www.backyardcampout.org/

            Global warming has in some ways been mischaracterized.  It’s often thought about as simply an environmental problem.  This “ghettoizes” the issue.  Global warming is going to affect each one of us.  It’s the biggest societal issue facing our day. 

            Hurricanes Katrina and Rita left 1,400 dead and displaced 1 million Louisiana residents, with an estimated 200,000 permanently displaced.  A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found that “major storms spinning in the Atlantic and Pacific since the 1970s have increased in duration and intensity by about 50%.”  With global warming, more intense hurricanes are going to become the norm.  And as a society we will all feel that impact.

           As detailed in a recent CNN article Study: Sudden Sea Level Surges Threaten 1 Billion, up to a billion people could be threatened by sea level rise from global warming.  And the Climate Change 2007:  Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability:  Working Group II Contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report released last month indicates that up to 2 billion people could be at risk of serious water shortages due to global warming.

            We still have time to act to avert the most devastating effects of climate change. And the steps we take, like changing to energy efficient light bulbs and choosing more fuel efficient cars, will not only help wildlife but we also help relieve some of the burden that others are sure to feel.  Whether or not we consider ourselves environmentalists, global warming is about all of us.