An Open Letter Regarding Climate Change from Concerned Members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences

September 20, 2016

On September 20, 2016, 376 members of the National Academy of Sciences, including 30 Nobel laureates, published an open letter to draw attention to the serious risks of climate change. The letter warns that the consequences of opting out of the Paris agreement would be severe and long-lasting for our planet’s climate and for the international credibility of the United States.

A full list of signers follows the text of the letter.

Members of the media interested in speaking with one of the organizers of the letter should contact responsiblescientists@gmail.com.

Human-caused climate change is not a belief, a hoax, or a conspiracy. It is a physical reality. Fossil fuels powered the Industrial Revolution. But the burning of oil, coal, and gas also caused most of the historical increase in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. This increase in greenhouse gases is changing Earth’s climate.

Our fingerprints on the climate system are visible everywhere. They are seen in warming of the oceans, the land surface, and the lower atmosphere. They are identifiable in sea level rise, altered rainfall patterns, retreat of Arctic sea ice, ocean acidification, and many other aspects of the climate system. Human-caused climate change is not something far removed from our day-to-day experience, affecting only the remote Arctic. It is present here and now, in our own country, in our own states, and in our own communities.

During the Presidential primary campaign, claims were made that the Earth is not warming, or that warming is due to purely natural causes outside of human control. Such claims are inconsistent with reality.

Others argued that no action is warranted until we have absolute certainty about human impacts on climate. Absolute certainty is unattainable. We are certain beyond a reasonable doubt, however, that the problem of human-caused climate change is real, serious, and immediate, and that this problem poses significant risks: to our ability to thrive and build a better future, to national security, to human health and food production, and to the interconnected web of living systems.

The basic science of how greenhouse gases trap heat is clear, and has been for over a century. Ultimately, the strength of that basic science brought the governments of the world to Paris in December 2015. They went to Paris despite pronounced differences in systems of government, in national self-interest, in culpability for past emissions of greenhouse gases, and in vulnerability to future climate change. The leaders of over 190 countries recognized that the problem of human-caused climate change is a danger to present and future citizens of our planet. They made national commitments to address this problem. It was a small but historic and vital first step towards more enlightened stewardship of Earth’s climate system.

From studies of changes in temperature and sea level over the last million years, we know that the climate system has tipping points. Our proximity to these tipping points is uncertain. We know, however, that rapid warming of the planet increases the risk of crossing climatic points of no return, possibly setting in motion large-scale ocean circulation changes, the loss of major ice sheets, and species extinctions. The climatic consequences of exceeding such thresholds are not confined to the next one or two electoral cycles. They have lifetimes of many thousands of years.

The political system also has tipping points. Thus it is of great concern that the Republican nominee for President has advocated U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Accord. A “Parexit” would send a clear signal to the rest of the world: "The United States does not care about the global problem of human-caused climate change. You are on your own." Such a decision would make it far more difficult to develop effective global strategies for mitigating and adapting to climate change. The consequences of opting out of the global community would be severe and long-lasting – for our planet’s climate and for the international credibility of the United States.

The United States can and must be a major player in developing innovative solutions to the problem of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Nations that find innovative ways of decarbonizing energy systems and sequestering CO2 will be the economic leaders of the 21st century. Walking away from Paris makes it less likely that the U.S. will have a global leadership role, politically, economically, or morally. We cannot afford to cross that tipping point.

The following signers of this letter do so as individual NAS members and not on behalf of the NAS itself or their Institutions.

SIGNED BY:

Benjamin D. Santer, Member, National Academy of Sciences^

Kerry A. Emanuel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology^

George B. Field, Harvard University^

Ray Weymann, Carnegie Institution for Science Emeritus^

Peter C. Agre, Johns Hopkina Malaria Research Institute

Bruce Alberts, University of California San Francisco

Thomas D. Albright, The Salk institute for Biological Studies

Richard M. Amasino, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Jim Anderson, Harvard University

Phillip W. Anderson, Princeton University

Roger Angel, University of Arizona

Luc E. Anselin, University of Chicago

Fred Anson, California Institute of Technology

David Arnett, Univerity of Arizona

Mary T. Kalin Arroyo, University of Chile

Greg Asner, Carnegie Institution for Science

Sir Michael Atiyah, University of Edinburgh

Tanya M. Atwater, University of California Santa Barbara

Francisco J. Ayala, University of California Irvine

George Backus, University of California San Diego

Neta Bahcall, Princeton University

Steven Balbus, University of Oxford

David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology

Allen Bard, University of Texas

Sir David Baulcombe, University of Cambridge

Adriaan Bax, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Barry J. Beaty, Colorado State University

Michael Bender, Princeton University

Charles L. Bennett, Johns Hopkins University

Michael V.L. Bennett, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Jeffrey L. Bennetzen, University of Georgia

John Bercaw, California Institute of Technology

May R. Berenbaum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Howard Berg, Harvard University

Robert Bergman, University of California Berkeley

Joseph Berry, Carnegie Institution for Science

Jacques E. Blamont, Centre National d' Etudes Spatiales

Roger Blandford, Stanford University

Michael R Botchan, University of California Berkeley

Ed A. Boyle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Daniel Branton, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Winslow Briggs, Carnegie Institution for Science

Steven P. Briggs, University of California San Diego

Wallace Broecker, Columbia University

Axel T. Brunger, Stanford University

Douglas W. Burbank, University of California Santa Barbara

E. Margaret Burbidge, University of California San Diego Emerita

John Cairns, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Mark A. Cane, Columbia University

Claude Canizares, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Marian Carlson, Columbia University

John Carlson, Yale University

Stephen Carpenter, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Sean B. Carroll, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Emily A. Carter, Princeton University

Katherine Cashman, University of Bristol

Juan Carlos Castilla, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Anny Cazenave, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales

Thure E. Cerling, University of Utah

Sylvia T. Ceyer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Martin Chalfie, Columbia University

F. Stuart Chapin, University of Alaska

Roger Chevalier, University of Virginia

Steven Chu, Stanford University

Ralph Cicerone, Professor Emeritus, University of California

David E. WELLSham, Harvard Medical School

George Clark, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Michael T. Clegg, University of California Irvine

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Laboratoire Kastler Brossel

Jonathan J. Cole, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Rita R. Colwell, University of Maryland

Karen S. Cook, Stanford University

Richard M. Cowling, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

James Cronin, University of Chicago

Paul J. Crutzen, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

Roy Curtiss III, University of Florida

Gretchen Daily, Stanford University

G. Brent Dalrymple, Oregon State University

Sir Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge

Earl W. Davie, University of Washington

Russ E. Davis, University of California San Diego

Marc Davis, University of California Berkeley

Ruth DeFries, Columbia University

Edward F. DeLong, University of Hawaii Manoa

David L. Denlinger, Ohio State University

George Denton, University of Maine

Donald DePaolo, Univerity of California Berkeley

Bob Dickinson, University of Texas

Rodolfo Dirzo, Stanford University

Michael J. Donoghue, Yale University

Russell F. Doolittle, University of California San Diego

Dennis A. Dougherty, California Institute of Technology

John E. Dowling, Harvard University

Bruce Draine, Princeton University

Alan Dressler, Carnegie Institution for Science

Thomas Dunne, University of California Santa Barbara

Joseph R. Ecker, Member, National Academy of Sciences

R. Lawrence Edwards, University of Minnesota

Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

John M. Eiler, California Institute of Technology

David Eisenberg, University of California Los Angeles

Richard Eisenberg, University of Rochester

W. Gary Ernst, Stanford University

Mark Estelle, University of California San Diego

James A. Estes, University of California Santa Cruz

Paul Falkowski, Rutgers University

Nina V. Fedoroff, Pennsylvania State University Emerita

Juli Feigon, University of California Los Angeles

Joseph Felsenstein, University of Washington

Alex Filippenko, University of California Berkeley

Gerald D. Fischbach, Simons Foundation, Chief Scientist

Edmond H. Fischer, University of Washington

Donald Forsyth, Brown University

Stewart Fotheringham, Arizona State University

Wendy Freedman, University of Chicago

Katherine H. Freeman, Pennsylvania State University

Perry Allen Frey, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Margaret T. Fuller, Stanford University

Douglas J. Futuyma, Stony Brook University

Fred H. Gage, Salk Institute for Biological Research

Chris Garrett, University of Victoria

Neil Gehrels, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Reinhard Genzel, Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik

Howard Georgi, Harvard University

Charles Gilbert, The Rockefeller University

Sheldon Glashow, Boston University

Roy Glauber, Harvard University

Alexander N. Glazer, University of California Berkeley

Peter H. Gleick, Pacific Institute

Stephen P. Goff, Columbia University

Robert B. Goldberg, University of California Los Angeles

Peter Goldreich, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Michael Goodchild, University of California Santa Barbara

Richard Goody, Harvard University

Fred Gould, North Carolina State University

Harry Gray, California Institute of Technology

Paul Greengard, Rockefeller University

Diane E. Griffin, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

David Gross, University of California Santa Barbara

Charles G. Gross, Princeton University

Carol A. Gross, University of California San Francisco

Timothy Grove, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Robert H. Grubbs, California Institute of Technology

Jim Gunn, Princeton University

Sarah Hake, Agricultural Research Service

Alexander Halliday, University of Oxford

Jim Hansen, Columbia University

Susan Hanson, Clark University

Stanley Hart, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Daniel L. Hartl, Harvard University

Dennis Hartmann, University of Washington

Robert Haselkorn, The University of Chicago

Alan Hastings, University of California Davis

Robert M. Hauser, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Stephen Hawking, Cambridge University

Wick C. Haxton, Univerity of California Berkeley

John Hayes, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Martha P. Haynes, Cornell University

Timothy Heckman, Johns Hopkins University

Carl Heiles, University of California Berkeley

Lars Hernquist, Harvard University

Dudley Herschbach, Harvard University

John G. Hildebrand, University of Arizona

David M. Hillis, University of Texas

Sarah Hobbie, University of Minnesota

Bert Hoelldobler, Arizona State University

Paul F. Hoffman, University of Victoria

Albrecht W. Hofmann, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry

Sir Brian Hoskins, Imperial College London & University of Reading

Andre T. Jagendorf, Cornell University

Daniel H. Janzen, University of Pennsylvania

J.R. Jokipii, University of Arizona

Tom Jordan, University of Southern California

Jean Jouzel, Laboratoire des Sciences du Climate et de l'Environnement

William A. Jury, University of California Riverside

H. Ronald Kaback, University of California Los Angeles

Thomas Kailath, Stanford University

Peter M. Kareiva, University of California Los Angeles

David Karl, University of Hawaii

Harvey Karten, Professor Emeritus, University of California San Diego

Guinevere Kauffmann, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics

Steve A. Kay, University of Southern California

Paul Kay, International Computer Science Institute

Peter Kelemen, Columbia University

Kenneth Kellermann, National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Donald Kennedy, Stanford University

Charles Kennel, University of California San Diego

Robert C. Kennicutt, Cambridge University

Wolfgang Ketterle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Margaret Kidwell, University of Arizona

Susan W. Kieffer, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Peter S. Kim, Stanford University

Patrick V. Kirch, University of California Berkeley

Margaret Kivelson, University of California Los Angeles

Daniel Kleppner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Catherine L. Kling, Iowa State University

Judith P. Klinman, University of California Berkeley

Eric I. Knudsen, Stanford University School of Medicine

Brian Koblika, Stanford University School of Medicine

M.A.R. Koehl, Univerity of California Berkeley

David Kohlstedt, University of Minnesota

Sir Hans Kornberg, Boston University

John Krebs, University of Oxford

Shrinivas Kulkarni, California Institute of Technology

J. Clark Lagarias, University of California Davis

Kurt Lambeck, Australian National University

Eric Lambin, Stanford University

Arthur Landy, Brown University

Charles H. Langmuir, Harvard University

Brian A. Larkins, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

John H. Law, University of Arizona Emeritus

Sir John Lawton, Former Chief Executive, UK Natural Environment Research Council

Yuan Lee, Academica Sinica Taiwan

Richard E. Lenski, Michigan State University

Simon Levin, Princeton University

Michael Levitt, Stanford University School of Medicine

Gene E. Likens, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Laszlo Lorand, Feinberg Medical School Northwestern University Emeritus

C. Owen Lovejoy, Kent State University

Jane Lubchenco, Oregon State University

Jonathan I. Lunine, Cornell University

Michael Lynch, Indiana University

Akin Mabogunje, Foundation for Development and Environmental Initiatives

Trudy Mackay, North Carolina State University

Anthony P. Mahowald, University of Chicago

Syukuro Manabe, Princeton University

Joyce Marcus, University of Michigan

Rudolph A. Marcus, California Institute of Technology

Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University

Pamela A. Matson, Stanford University

Rowena G. Matthews, University of Michigan Emerita

Michel G. Mayor, University of Geneva

Bonnie J. McCay, Rutgers University

Richard McCray, University of Colorado

Bruce S. McEwen, Rockefeller University

Fred McLafferty, Cornell University

Jim McWilliams, University of California Los Angeles

Jerrold Meinwald, Cornell University

Jerry M. Melillo, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole

Henry J. Melosh, Purdue University

Sabeeha Merchant, University of California Los Angeles

Joachim Messing, Rutgers University

Mario Molina, University of California San Diego

Harold Mooney, Stanford University

Peter B. Moore, Yale University

James M. Moran, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Nancy Moran, University of Texas

M. Granger Morgan, Carnegie Mellon University

Ellen S. Mosley-Thompson, Ohio State University

Walter Munk, University of California San Diego

Royce Murray, Univeristy of North Carolina

Sidney Nagel, University of Chicago

Ramesh Narayan, Harvard University

Jeremy Nathans, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Eugene W. Nester, University of Washington

William T. Newsome, Stanford University

Richard P. Novick, New York University School of Medicine

Paul E. Olsen, Columbia University

Peter Olson, Johns Hopkins University

Neil D. Opdyke, University of Florida

Jeremiah Ostriker, Columbia University

Sarah Otto, University of British Columbia

Sir Ronald Oxburgh, Cambridge University

Stephen Pacala, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Norman R. Pace, University of Colorado

Richard D. Palmiter, University of Washington School of Medicine

Stephen Palumbi, Stanford University

Joseph Pedlosky, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Jim Peebles, Princeton University

Gordon Pettengill, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

S. George Philander, Princeton University

William Phillips, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Dolores R. Piperno, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Terry Plank, Columbia University

William H. Press, University of Texas

Frank Press, Member, National Academy of Sciences

George W. Preston, Carnegie Institution for Science

Peter H. Raven, Missouri Botanical Garden

Maureen E. Raymo, Columbia University

Martin Rees, Cambridge University

Peter Rhines, University of Washington

Frank Richter, University of Chicago

Robert E. Ricklefs, University of Missouri

Lynn M. Riddiford, University of Washington

George Rieke, University of Arizona

Marcia Rieke, University of Arizona

Adam Riess, Johns Hopkins University

Morton Roberts, National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Gene E. Robinson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

A. Kimball Romney, University of California Irvine

Michael Rosbash, Brandeis University

Mal Ruderman, Columbia University

Roberta L. Rudnick, University of California Santa Barbara

Gary Ruvkun, Massachusetts General Hospital

Roald Sagdeev, University of Maryland

Pedro A. Sanchez, Columbia University

David Sandwell, University of California San Diego

Joshua R. Sanes, Harvard University

Daniel L. Schacter, Harvard University

Paul Schechter, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Randy W. Schekman, University of California Berkeley

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

David W. Schindler, University of Alberta

Bill Schlesinger, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Johanna Schmitt, University of California Davis

Robert J. Scholes, University of the Witswatersrand

Julian Schroeder, University of California San Diego

Gerald Schubert, Universty of California Los Angeles

Matthew P. Scott, President, Carnegie Institution for Science

Sara Seager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ronald R. Sederoff, North Carolina State University

Jeff Severinghaus, University of California San Diego

Irwin Shapiro, Harvard University

Carla J. Shatz, Stanford University

Peter Shearer, University of California San Diego

Frank Shu, University of California San Diego

Kerry Sieh, Nanyang Technological University

James Simons, Chairman, Simons Foundation

Norman H. Sleep, Stanford University

Susan Solomon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Pamela S. Soltis, University of Florida

Alfred Sommer, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

David Spergel, Princeton University

Nicholas C. Spitzer, University of California San Diego

Charles Steidel, California Institute of Technology

Thomas A. Steitz, Yale University

Edward Stolper, California Institute of Technology

Howard A. Stone, Princeton University

Joan E. Strassmann, Washington University, St. Louis

Timothy Swager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lynn R. Sykes, Columbia University Emeritus

Harvey Tananbaum, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Joseph Taylor, Princeton University

Saul A. Teukolsky, Cornell University

David Hurst Thomas, American Museum of Natural History

Lonnie Thompson, Ohio State University

Kip Thorne, Member, National Academy of Sciences

James M. Tiedje, Michigan State University

Alar Toomre, Massachusetts Institute of technology

Scott Tremaine, Institute for Advanced Study

Susan Trumbore, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry

James Tumlinson, Pennsylvania State University

Monica G. Turner, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Anthony Tyson, University of California Davis

Joan Selverstone, Valentine University of California Los Angeles

James L. Van Etten, University of Nebraska

Martha Vaughan, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Inder Verma, The Salk institute for Biological Studies

George Veronis, Yale University

Peter H. von Hippel, University of Oregon

Gerhard Wagner, Harvard Medical School

David B. Wake, University of California Berkeley

David Walker, Columbia University

John M. Wallace, University of Washington

E. Bruce Watson, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Steven Weinberg, University of Texas

Rainer Weiss, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

William J. Welch, University of California Berkeley

Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Emerita

Simon D.M. White, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics

Torsten N. Wiesel, President Emeritus, The Rockefeller University

Edward O. Wilson, Harvard University

Robert W. Wilson, Member, National Academy of Sciences

David Wineland, Member, National Academy of Sciences

Steven Wofsy, Harvard University

Julian Wolpert, Princeton University

John Wood, Member, National Academy of Sciences

George M. Woodwell, Woods Hole Research Center

Stanford E. Woosley, University of California Santa Cruz

Carl Wunsch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Keith Yamamoto, University of California San Francisco

Martin Yanofsky, University of California San Diego

Tilahun Yilma, University of California Davis

William Young, University of California San Diego

Mary Lou Zoback, Stanford University

Maria T. Zuber, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

^ = letter organizer

Source: http://responsiblescientists.org/

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