Surveying Chemists - ACS and Climate Change...

The American Chemical Society, through its member-run advisory committees, develops a variety of public policy positions that are relevant to the membership at large.  These range from Visa Restrictions and NSF Funding (FY ’11) through Climate Change.

These public policy positions are updated, revised, retired on a rolling basis.  This fall ACS plans to revise its Climate Change Position (in full here as pdf).

The introduction of the current iteration reads:

Careful and comprehensive scientific assessments have clearly demonstrated that the Earth’s climate system is changing rapidly in response to growing atmospheric burdens of greenhouse gases and absorbing aerosol particles (IPCC, 2007). There is very little room for doubt that observed climate trends are due to human activities. The threats are serious and action is urgently needed to mitigate the risks of climate change.

The reality of global warming, its current serious and potentially disastrous impacts on Earth system properties, and the key role emissions from human activities play in driving these phenomena have been recognized by earlier versions of this ACS policy statement (ACS, 2004), by other major scientific societies, including the American Geophysical Union (AGU, 2003), the American Meteorological Society (AMS, 2007) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 2007), and by the U. S. National Academies and ten other leading national academies of science (NA, 2005). This statement reviews key global climate change impacts and recommends actions required to mitigate or adapt to currently anticipated consequences.

In order to hear from the ACS membership-at-large, ACS has put together a survey on this policy position so that the Joint Board-Council Committee on Environmental Improvement (CEI) can understand and take into consideration the full range of opinions as they make revisions to the policy position.

Please read the official introduction to the survey HERE.

And please take a moment to express your opinions in the survey HERE.

As a member myself, I think this is a great opportunity for membership to be heard on such an important ACS position.  If you think ACS is missing an important piece of data or reference, check out the survey.  If you think ACS should take a stronger stand against climate change, check out the survey.  If you think ACS has overestimated the effects of climate change, check out the survey.  ACS governance really wants to hear from all of you!