RACC supports proposed Renewable Energy Resolution for Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors
New reports
4th National Climate Assessment Volume II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States (Volume I was released in 2017) “The National Climate Assessment (NCA) assesses the science of climate change and variability and its impacts across the United States, now and throughout this century.”
- website with summary information, links to previous releases and downloads
- Summary Findings (PDF)
- Report in Brief (PDF) includes the summary findings and important data
IPCC Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 ºC
Report issued October 2018 from the United Nations on climate change: We must do more, faster to slow carbon emissions
— The UN climate change science group, the IPCC, has issued an alarming new report. The report, summarized in this New York Times article, has been accepted by 130 nation members of the UN. A New York Times analysis of the reports implications is here. The bottom line: we (the US and all other nations) are not meeting IPCC-agreed upon targets on carbon dioxide emissions, and if we don’t act urgently to greatly lower those emissions, we will face a future of average temperature rises of greater than 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C). Here is a science summary of this report in Nature, arguably the most reliable magazine of science.
Links to climate information and resources
- Virginia campaigns of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network
- The scientific background at 350.org
- Climate Signals
The following selected resources provide a cross-section of information about global climate change impacts https://www.climatesignals.org/resource-hub
Climate Module by Fred Fevrier (Archive copy, dated August 2018)
Past area talks and events
Randy Hayes gave a seminar on Climate Change,October 23, 2018, on the W&L campus, sponsored by the Environmental Committee of 50 Ways Rockbridge and by the W&L Student Environmental Action League (SEAL). Randy Hayes was a cofounder of the Rainforest Action Network in 1985. Early in the course of the development of public understanding of Climate Change, this grassroots organization recognized the danger to Central American rainforest habitat posed by conversion of forest to cattle ranching, and acted on that recognition. The work of the Rainforest Action Network was not without risk. “He walked the walk.” See Wiki’s account of that and more.
RACC was honored to host a talk about Climate Change by Dr. William F. Ruddiman on April 5, 2016 in Lexington. Co-hosts were the Geology Department of Washington and Lee University and the Lexington chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL). The topic of his presentation was “Global Warming: Evidence and Origin”. Dr. Ruddiman’s professional career can be viewed on Wikipedia including sections on the Early Anthropocene and early agriculture, as well as on the University of Virginia Department of Environmental Science website. The talk was attended by 95 people; the Q and A was lively and lasted 35 minutes.
A short talk about CCL was then presented by Tessa Horan, a sophomore at W&L who is the President and co-founder of the Lexington CCL. The talk is introduced by Lee Merrill, former co-president of RACC.
Virginia Author and Visiting Senior Research Scholar at the University of Richmond Stephen Nash gave a public talk entitled: “What Climate Change Means for Virginia” on Sept 22, 2016 at Washington and Lee University. In 2014, he published “Virginia Climate Fever: How Global Warming Will Transform Our Cities, Shorelines, and Forests”
– – American Institute of Physics 2015 Science Writing Award for Books