We Are Counting on You to Help Us Beat Global Warming

Letter from the President

What in the world does wilderness have to do with global warming?

I have heard that question many times when telling people that we have put a number of our scientists, economists, and other staff members into the campaign to seek solutions to this growing problem. Overseeing our legislative campaign is a former congressional aide who was the original director of the House committee set up to tackle global warming.

They are very busy right now because passage of a climate change bill is the number-one conservation priority this fall. The House passed the Waxman-Markey Bill in the spring, so now most of the action is in the Senate. It is critical that the Senate approve as strong a bill as possible. Then lawmakers from both chambers will meet to forge a final version.

Though “global warming” and “climate change” were not in the dictionary in 1935, we have been working on this issue since our founding. The wilderness and other public lands that we have helped protect have been absorbing and storing carbon from the atmosphere — carbon that otherwise would have led to even more global warming than we are experiencing. In addition, because many of these places are large and wild, they have provided another benefit: Wildlife species whose habitat is changing with the climate are more likely to be able to migrate and thereby survive. (To learn more about this, read this story.)

Now that scientists have documented some of the ways in which land conservation helps us fend off global warming, we have an even stronger mandate to protect the natural world. Oil and gas drilling, logging, and mining must not occur in places where the ecological toll is too high. Across the country we are identifying expansive landscapes that we believe are too valuable to be exploited by commercial interests. We will do whatever we can to defend these special places.

To succeed, we will need to continue developing new partners. More than ever, the creation of wilderness areas reflects support from business owners, hunters, educators, and ranchers who are seeing the benefits of such efforts to enable human communities and natural communities to live in harmony.

As always, we depend on our members to support our efforts to craft solutions to the many challenges we face. Your financial support makes it possible for us to employ the experts who are building the case for protecting wilderness and wildlife. Your letters, e-mails, and phone calls help convince decision makers to make the right choices. During this critical time, I urge you to tell your representatives in Congress that future generations are counting on them to help tackle the serious threats posed by global warming. We cannot delay any longer.

Sincerely,
William H. Meadows

P.S. We have a new ally as we strive to reach a wider audience: Dave Matthews. One of the most popular musicians in the country, Dave is now a member of our Governing Council and will be making the case for wilderness in a variety of ways. We are tremendously excited to have Dave at our side.