RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!A Communications Guide !!!!!!!!!to Climate Change Impacts Right Here, Right Now A Communicaons Guide to Climate Change Impacts Cover photo: Reeve Jolliffe. Traffic and street lights in New York City disabled by Hurricane Sandy. Version 1.1 For informaon contact: Hunter Cung Director of Strategic Communicaons Climate Nexus +1 415-420-7498 [email protected] This work is licensed under the Creave Commons AYribu5on-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. New York, NY Jan. 2013 Table of Contents Execu5ve Summary ...............................................5 Communicaon Guidelines ................................... 10 Signatures of Climate Change ............................... 14 Extreme Weather .................................................. 14 Season Creep ........................................................ 21 Arc5c Sea Ice ......................................................... 22 Ice Sheets and Glaciers ......................................... 23 Sea Level Rise ........................................................ 25 Ocean Acidificaon ............................................... 26 Human Health ....................................................... 27 Society and Systems .............................................. 29 Food Price and Supply ........................................... 30 “How Do We Know?” ............................................ 31 Example Language .................................................32 Acknowledgements ...............................................33 Endnotes ............................................................... 34 Sources ..................................................................37 Execuve Summary We are no longer discussing the threat of The science of fingerprin5ng has developed climate change. We are living with the reality significantly in the last several years, and we of it, right here and right now. Today the can connect the dots with confidence. The impact of climate disrup5on in the United news media are increasingly recognizing the States is clear, costly and widespread.1,2,3,4 links to climate change and the massive Importantly, these changes are teachable scien5fic evidence suppor5ng them. And moments that can help galvanize public will perhaps most importantly, a majority of for climate protec5on. Americans now connect the dots themselves and are changing their atudes as a result. The fingerprint of global warming is found on Taken together, these trends make climate disasters ranging from raging wildfires and change impacts, right here and right now, a flooded coastlines to extreme heat waves powerful focus in the fight for climate and the growing threat of asthma.5 Weather protec5on. catastrophes have tripled in North America over the last 30 years, incurring over $1 The links between climate change on one trillion in damages.6,7 Climate disrup5on has hand and damage and disaster on the other driven up food prices,8 are complex and can be tricky to talk about increased the risk of in the sound-bite vernacular of mainstream West Nile outbreaks media. Helping Americans understand the across the U.S.,9 link between climate change and disaster and helped fuel requires a well-craed and disciplined wildfires that approach. As the public increasingly caused over $1 recognizes the changing weather they are billion in damages in living through, the broader changes to other 2012.10 Our seas are facets of society must also be recognized and now 30 percent more understood. This presents challenges to acidic due to the scien5sts, elected leaders, health care carbon pollu5on providers, policymakers and communicators. taken up by the The threats are myriad and complex, but oceans.11 Global warming they are rooted in climate disrup5on and drives up sea levels, increasing unfold within the context of the the reach of storm surge12 and dramacally communi5es, governments and economies amplifying disasters such as Superstorm that must adapt to such changes. By their Sandy.13 Half of the summer sea ice in the nature, disasters can open eyes and drive Arc5c has been lost due to warming,14 a poli5cal will. To help meet this change that has altered global weather communicaon challenge, this guide offers paerns, and brought harsh winter storms tools and strategies for making current south to the United States.15 climate change impacts clear and understandable. 5 Impacts the threat. Weather is the foundaon for many of the impacts happening here and As science has long predicted, climate now so for the full scope of the problem to change is bringing damage and disrup5on to be seen clearly, the links to disrup5on must ecosystems, infrastructure and society across be made explicit. the United States: Seasons: Season creep has been increasing Infrastructure: Through heat waves that for years. Although it poses immediate risk to cripple ulies’ cooling systems, western farmers and food supply, the impacts extend fires that destroy neighborhoods, storm to damaged ecosystems and other surges that devastate public transportaon repercussions that are only now being systems and road networks, and much more, grasped. Bark beetle infestaons across the climate disrup5on is damaging the physical West that decimated old-growth forests are foundaons of modern society. The range of one vivid example, but others, such as a ski systems threatened by climate disrup5on industry crippled by low snow pack, illustrate encompasses transit and transportaon, the how climate change threatens the businesses electric grid, the public health network, and ac5vi5es that anchor the U.S. economy. emergency response and water and sewage systems. Geophysical changes: The unprecedented changes to the Arc5c sea ice, Greenland ice Food: Droughts, heat waves and extreme sheet and glaciers in Antarc5ca and beyond precipitaon are impac5ng crop produc5on, pose a series of threats that cross boundaries leading to spikes in food prices and of all other impacts. These changes help disrup5ons in food supply. Recent drought in drive sea level rise, play cri5cal roles in global the southern Plains accounts for losses in the weather formaon, are fundamental to billions. Damage to transportaon systems is water supply and crop produc5on, and are a another source of disrup5on for food pivotal force in determining ocean currents. supplies, as reflected in the challenges for The links between these ongoing and record- grain produc5on and distribu5on posed by breaking changes and our daily lives must be the recent record-low water levels in the made as explicit as possible, even as science Mississippi River. seeks to understand all the poten5al ramificaons. Health: The stress on human health is already apparent in climate change-links to Ocean Acidifica1on: The swil and recent illness and increased exposure risk. unprecedented changes to ocean chemistry Outbreaks of West Nile virus correlate with stress sea life and coral reefs that are cri5cal higher temperatures, for instance, and heat to ecosystems. The changes have already waves are the no. 1 weather-related cause of been witnessed and tallied, as in oyster death. produc5on, and their impacts are on track to get much worse. Extreme Weather: Extreme weather offers perhaps the most tangible fingerprint of climate change. As more people experience unprecedented heat waves, extreme precipitaon and drought, they are beYer able to wrap their minds around the scale of 6 Science Media Science has advanced dramacally in the last Domes5c disasters are widely reported by several years, and the ability to fingerprint the news media, fill social media channels, (or aribute) many events, disasters, and and are a mainstay of kitchen table trends to climate change now exists.16 conversaon. Americans are par5cularly Climate disrup5on has greatly amplified and good listeners when the story is unfolding in fueled many disasters, such as Superstorm their own backyard. Because news focuses Sandy17,18 and western wildfires.19 In other the public on damage and disaster, it offers a disasters, tremendous climate change opportunity to has so put climate dramacally change in the increased the spotlight. odds of the underlying While media event (such as coverage in the case of linking climate the recent change to record- disasters s5ll breaking heat olen falls wave in Texas) short, the it can be said situaon has that climate improved disrupon is Jim Cantore, an on-camera meteorologist for The Weather significantly the primary Channel, reports on Hurricane Irene from Baery Park in over the last 20 cause. New York City. two years. Photo: The Weather Channel via GeYy Images Most analyses Climate show coverage change rising, and all impacts run far show a striking ahead of projec5ons offered by climate upturn in aen5on to current climate change models. Past predic5ons have turned out to impacts.30,31,32 Stories linking climate change be overly cau5ous, olen underes5mang to sea-rise, unusual weather and other the rate of change.21,22,23 events reached an all-5me high in 2012. A recent analysis found 5,800 stories on Just as slow-moving impacts, such as sea impacts published in 2012, 37 percent more level rise, are constant and observable, the than 2011 and 25 percent more than during fast-moving impacts, such as extreme the 2009 peak.33 weather and wildfires, now also show clear, constant trends extending over decades. Although media coverage can s5ll improve, 24,25,26,27,28,29 There will be no returning to the these trends highlight the opportunity to old normal when it comes to