"[P]eople acting in a group can accomplish things which no individual acting alone could even hope to bring about." - FDR

News & Analysis | REG•WATCH Blog | Press Room

Thursday, September 06, 2007

New Report Chides Agencies' Handling of Climate's Impact on Natural Resources

The Government Accountability Office — the research arm of Congress — released a report today on the federal government's responsiveness to climate change. Specifically, the report focuses on how officials who manage federal land and resources have planned for the effects of climate change.

The report recognizes the danger extreme weather, rising sea level, and biological instability pose to our nation's waters, lands, and coastal areas. Yet, according to the report, the Bush administration isn't taking the danger seriously:

In particular, [the Bureau of Land Management], [Forest Service], [Fish and Wildlife Service], [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration], and [National Park Service] have not made climate change a priority, and the agencies' strategic plans do not specifically address climate change.

Another striking conclusion of the report is the broad information gaps federal resource managers face when grappling with the effects of climate change:

Resource managers do not have sufficient site-specific information to plan for and manage the effects of climate change on the federal resources they manage. In particular, the managers lack computational models for local projections of expected changes and detailed inventories and monitoring systems for an adequate baseline understanding of existing local species. Without such information, managers are limited to reacting to already-observed climate change effects on their units, which makes it difficult to plan for future changes.