Why the joint climate statement to the US Congress will fall on deaf ears Scientists have had enough of Congress' climate denial. On Tuesday, a whopping 31 major scientific groups — representing tens of thousands of researchers — delivered a joint letter to Capitol Hill to present a unified front on the seriousness of human-caused global warming and the need to address it. The 3-page letter, which is a more forceful version of a 2009 letter to which 19 scientific societies signed on, comes as the House Science Committee continues to investigate peer reviewed studies of climate change. It also landed on Congress' doorstep as House lawmakers are maneuvering to block the Pentagon from spending money to implement its plan to adapt to global warming and prepare for the more unstable world it is ushering in. The letter sends a powerful message to lawmakers that have been standing in the way of climate action. The problem with it, though, is that it's unlikely to do anything to change the toxic dynamic on Capitol Hill or beyond. "It's a sad commentary on the Congress that we feel we still need to write letters like this," he said via email. "If this was a discussion about facts, evidence, or even risk management, the debate would have ended years ago. But this is really about ideology, beliefs, money, the role of governments in solving long-term challenges, and, frankly, a failure of imagination on scales rarely seen before," Titley said. See http://ift.tt/29btqI4
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