Ohioans Should Act on Climate Change

The Nature Conservancy urges Ohioans to join us in the fight against climate change

DUBLIN, OHIO — December 17, 2008 — Negotiators from 190 countries will return home this week from international climate change talks in Bali, Indonesia – a conference that heightened international concern over the impact of global warming on both people and nature around the world.

It’s still too early to say whether the “Bali Roadmap” will produce a workable plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but The Nature Conservancy reminds Ohioans that we need not – and should not – wait to meet the challenges of a warming world.

“Ohioans will feel the effects of global warming through changes in our weather, our economy and in the plant and animal diversity that makes Ohio an attractive place to live and work,” said Denise Franz King, director of government relations for the Conservancy in Ohio. “It is clear that change is coming. Each of us must decide how it should be managed, and how much of it can be slowed.”

The Nature Conservancy urges Ohioans to join us in the fight against climate change by:

Asking your Congressional representative to support legislation proposed by Senators Joseph I. Lieberman and John W. Warner that would achieve substantial, long-term cuts in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.
Asking your state senator or representative to support Gov. Ted Strickland’s proposed energy plan (S.B. 221), especially by strengthening renewable energy portfolio standards and incentives for energy efficiency.
Supporting the Conservancy’s efforts to stop deforestation in Ohio and around the world.
Urging Gov. Strickland to create a statewide panel of experts to further our understanding of how climate change will affect Ohio.

The need to make substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions is becoming more evident, as scientists learn more about how these heat-trapping gases – which are generated by burning fossil fuels and by deforestation and other changes in land cover – will alter life right here in Ohio, King said.

“An evaluation of the most widely accepted climate models tells us that we’re leaving a very different Ohio to our children and grandchildren.” King said. In Ohio, changes could include:

Extended droughts and extreme heat, interrupted by periods of intense rain and flooding (such as the last summer’s floods in Northwest Ohio, which caused nearly $30 million in damages).
Diminished water supplies for agricultural, municipal and residential use. Competition for diminished water supplies will be exacerbated by increased demands for irrigation due to drought.
The migration of southern agricultural pests into Ohio, such as the corn earworm and bean leaf beetles. This could lead to lower crop yields, as well as increased pesticide use.
Lower lake levels, threatening the Great Lakes shipping industry and creating substantial expense to taxpayers for dredging harbors.
Loss of popular game fish species, as cold-water species, such as walleye and muskellunge, migrate north
Expanded low-oxygen “dead zones” in the Great Lakes, killing fish and other aquatic life.
Loss of valuable hardwood species from Ohio’s forest, limiting Ohio’s forest products industry.
A 50 percent loss in the number of neotropical migrant species (the colorful warblers, tanagers and other songbirds that breed in Ohio)

The costs of climate change – to farmers, businesses and everyday Ohioans – will be substantial, King said. “It’s appropriate to consider whether consumers can afford the cost of proposed measures to control greenhouse gases,” she said. “but that question has to be asked in the context of another – can we afford the cost of climate change?”

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.