Union of Concerned Scientists, Inc.

Program: Got Science? Defending Climate Science, Driving Down Pollution

Program Description:

The earth’s climate system is reeling from the effects of our dependence on fossil fuels. Every year, scientists see extreme heat, extreme precipitation, and growing health threats that are the consequences of a warming world. The weight of the scientific evidence for human-caused global warming is overwhelming. Climate change’s effect on extreme weather, public health and safety is widely acknowledged in the scientific literature and the urgent need to dramatically reduce our emissions of heat-trapping gases is well accepted. 

• Accurately communicate climate change science and expose the motives of those who undermine it.
• Cut through the highly charged rhetoric to build a climate science drumbeat in the popular press by visibly connecting global warming with its impacts on people’s health, safety and livelihoods.
• Fight for strong rules to curb climate change and defend the government’s authority to regulate dangerous emissions to safeguard public health.

Program Long-Term Success:

Limit the magnitude of global warming and its impact on people and the environment.

Program Short-Term Success:

• Visibly connect climate science and impacts more clearly with people’s health, safety, quality of life.

• Preserve EPA’s ability to regulate CO2 and ensure strong rules are implemented. 
• Expose attacks on climate science, scientists, and climate policy as a cynical fossil fuel-related corporate and/or front group strategy.  
  
• Ensure strong, precedent-setting climate policy is implemented in California.

Program Success Monitored by:

UCS Board and leadership

Program Success Examples:

UCS brought to widespread public attention the devastating toll ground-level ozone will take on Americans’ health if global warming emissions are left unchecked. The report documents that inaction on climate change will likely lead t 2.8 million more occurrences of acute respiratory symptoms like asthma; thousands more hospitalizations of seniors and infants; and some $5.4 billion in additional health costs—all within the next decade. Our report, “Rising Temperatures, Worsening Ozone Pollution,” is the first of a series of reports that will translate the latest scientific findings to alert the public more of specific public health threats posed by climate change.

Program: Turn Up Renewables, Turn Down Coal

Program Description:

Power generation is the largest single source of global warming emissions in the United States and the lion’s share of these emissions come from burning coal, which provides nearly half of the nation’s electricity. Coal power, by far the most carbon-intensive energy source, releases twice the carbon emissions of natural gas per equivalent unit of energy. To effectively address global warming in the United States, we will have to wean ourselves off coal in the coming decades. To do so, UCS is working to shut down the oldest, dirtiest coal plants and to stop the construction of new ones, promoting the growth of clean, renewable sources of energy like solar and wind power.

The alternative energy sources we need to power a modern electricity system—most of which use little to no water—are available now and are practical, affordable, and reliable. Yet the prospect of real action that would reduce our reliance on coal-fired power plants has unleashed a ferocious counterattack from the coal industry and its allies. Spin and misinformation from the “clean coal” industry and other fossil fuel interests—as well as “free-enterprise” organizations and conservative radio talk show hosts, internet bloggers, and print columnists—seek to confuse the public about the real costs of our current energy system.

We stand at a critical crossroads: unless we replace old coal plants with low-carbon and efficient technology, we will continue to pay staggering health, environmental, and economic costs associated with coal.

Program Long-Term Success:

Accelerate the transition to a sustainable, clean-energy economy

Program Short-Term Success:

• Promote renewable energy as reliable, affordable, and beneficial for economic development
• Advocate for strong new and defend existing renewable energy policies in key states and at the national level.
• Help ensure strong EPA regulations on selected power plant issues to increase economic pressure for retirement of old, dirty, carbon-intensive coal plants. 
• Put the national spotlight on the irresponsible water use of coal plants to help make the case for reducing coal use and increasing renewables.

Program Success Monitored by:

UCS Board and leadership

Program Success Examples:

Won passage of a landmark law in California requiring that, within the decade, at least one third of the state’s electricity is produced from clean and safe renewable sources like the wind and the sun. That’s the most aggressive renewable-energy requirement in the country and one UCS believes should be a model for the nation. The campaign also released “A Bright Future for the Heartland: Powering the Midwest Economy with Clean Energy,” a new report showings that clean energy investments in the region (recommended by these states’ own Governors) will create a net increase of 85,700 jobs by 2030.

Program: Science for the Public Good—Challenging Corporate Abuses of Science

Program Description:

Inappropriate corporate or political interference with science prevents government scientists from doing their jobs, misinforms the public, and leads to poor policy decisions on a wide range of issues, from prescription drug safety to climate change. UCS seeks to challenge inappropriate corporate interference with science and change flawed and often-corrupt governmental practices that put the public’s health and safety at risk. Corporations and other special interests continue to exert significant pressure on federal agencies to manipulate, suppress, and otherwise politicize science.

Corporations and other special interests continue to exert significant pressure on federal agencies to manipulate, suppress, and otherwise politicize science. UCS will continue to demonstrate how strong public protections can bring significant health and economic benefits to all Americans.  This is perhaps best exemplified by the Clean Air Act which has brought more than $50 trillion in net benefits to the U.S. since 1970.

 UCS will also expose special interests that twist facts and trample science and scientists in an effort to influence public opinion. When attacked, climate and other researchers—and their institutions—are, by and large, ill-prepared to respond. UCS will monitor these abuses and engage the public to thwart these efforts, advocating for solutions that protect government science.

UCS is a proven leader in exposing corporate abuse of science, defending scientists from unwarranted attacks, and developing solutions to restore scientific integrity in government.

Program Long-Term Success:

Ensure robust science informs and motivates public policy

Program Short-Term Success:

• Expose ongoing corporate and political interference with science.
• Pressure the administration to implement reforms that limit inappropriate corporate influence.
• Push Congress to pass laws that protect scientific whistleblowers and increase transparency in government science.
• Fight back against attacks on scientists—from subpoenas to open records requests to public smearing—by building the capacity of individuals and institutions to respond effectively.  

Program Success Monitored by:

UCS Board and leadership

Program Success Examples:

UCS successfully fought back against political motivated attacks on climate scientists including renowned climate scientist Michael Mann. When a climate denier group called the American Tradition Institute (ATI) tried to access Mann’s personal information, UCS again stepped in, explaining why no special interest group should be allowed access to a scientist’s private emails. UCS has led coalition efforts to protect scientists against politically motivated attacks in the courts and in public statements that have drawn support from more than 800 scientists and academics around the country. Thanks to UCS efforts, the courts have now upheld Mann’s right to privacy in his personal emails.

Program: Scientific Solutions for America’s Oil Dependence

Program Description:

America’s dependence on oil puts our environment, economy, health, and national security at risk. From the disaster in the Gulf and the myriad health and environmental dangers of climate change to the roughly $1 billion we send beyond our borders each day to pay for oil, the time is right for a strong national commitment to break our oil dependence. UCS is pursuing a science-based oil savings plan to cut our projected oil consumption in half by 2030.

Transforming the transportation sector is essential to cutting our oil dependence and the UCS team of engineers and analysts has made a name for itself as the most effective, multidisciplinary group of experts dedicated to advancing sound vehicles and fuels policy with an emphasis on both climate and energy security goals. UCS’s unique suite of scientific, advocacy, organizing, and communication skills, combined with our track record of impact and success, can lead us toward a future that, while difficult to win, is more attainable than at any time in the past half-century. Working together as a nation we can finally start moving beyond oil.

Program Long-Term Success:

Accelerate the transition to a sustainable, clean-energy economy

Program Short-Term Success:

• Empower consumers to make choices that save them money and cut America’s oil dependence.
• Promote technologies that improve vehicle fuel economy; and that power our vehicles with sustainable, low-carbon fuels instead of oil.

Program Success Monitored by:

UCS Board and leadership

Program Success Examples:

This past year, UCS experts played a pivotal role in the adoption of the next generation of standards for fuel efficiency and global warming emissions. Our team helped finalize strong car standards through 2016 and medium- and heavy-duty truck standards through 2018. We also set the bar for what was technically and economically possible for strong, long-term federal fuel efficiency and pollution standards—which automakers are now on record supporting. UCS will continue to shape both federal and state vehicle fuel economy and global warming pollution standards as the government gets ready to publish rules and regulations next summer.

Program: Healthy Food and Farms

Program Description:

The U.S. government is currently making the wrong foods cheaper by paying billions to subsidize things like corn syrup that go into processed food. Meanwhile, farmers who grow healthy foods like fruits and vegetables work with little or no support. Instead of subsidizing processed food, we should be supporting healthy food as well as farming practices that protect the health of our land, air, and water.

UCS wants to shift the food system in the United States to one in which healthy farms produce more real food—a system that encourages farmers to grow more fruits, vegetables, a variety of grains, and other nutritious foods, and rewards them for using modern, sophisticated methods that safeguard our environment and keep our farmland healthy and productive for the future. The agriculture system UCS seeks would include meats and other animal products, but farmers would have incentives—which don’t exist today—to produce them together with crops in low-waste, high-yield systems that are better for the environment than the current system.

UCS has the scientific and economic expertise to demonstrate that a sustainable, resilient, and diverse agricultural system is practical, achievable, and will help bring significant benefits to the environment, public health, and our economy. With a combination of rigorous scientific and economic analysis, compelling communications, and the help of a highly mobilized base of members and supporters, we will take on the powerful special interests defending the status quo and help the public demand—and get—healthy food from healthy farms.

Program Long-Term Success:

Advance sustainable agriculture and land use

Program Short-Term Success:

• Promote incentives that bring more healthy food to Americans’ dinner tables, and encourage farmers to use environmentally friendly practices.
• Highlight the economic and practical benefits of sustainable practices that maintain the health and productivity of U.S. farmlands.
• Raise public awareness about how Monsanto’s pesticide-promoting, “Roundup Ready” business model serves as a barrier to better food system and has created widespread weed resistance, ratcheted up pesticide use, and spurred an increase in the use of older, more toxic herbicides.

Program Success Monitored by:

UCS Board and leadership

Program Success Examples:

UCS’s recent report Market Forces: Creating Jobs through Public Investment in Local and Regional Food Systems launched a national discussion about the benefits of local, sustainable food systems (August). The report demonstrates how the burgeoning growth of farmers markets around the country—increasing some 20-fold over the past few decades to more than 7,000 today—not only can help make Americans’ diets healthier, they can help America’s economy too. The report shows how even modest support for local farmers markets has a big payoff in jobs and benefits throughout local economies.