1.  In a landmark 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, it was found that greenhouse gases (GHGs) are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, leading to the 2009 "endangerment finding" that allowed EPA to establish emissions standards for sources (burning of fossil fuels, etc.) shown to reasonably affect health and welfare.  But a recent Department of Energy (DOE) report supporting repealing limits on GHG emissions has met with criticism by more than 85 American and international scientists who point to the warming (2.25 to 2.53 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times of every region of the planet, with more frequent and intense heat waves, floods, wildfires, droughts and other disasters.  The DOE report could have an impact on federal policies that would ramp up the production and burning of coal, oil and gas, the main drivers of climate change.

2.  The Nature Conservancy (TNC) reports that 2024 was the warmest year in 175 years of recordkeeping, with the Earth experiencing more than 150 extreme weather events categorized as "unprecedented" by the U.N. World Meteorological Organization.  While the U.S. has recently rolled back federal climate initiatives (renewable-energy installations, other conservation efforts), our global competitors like China are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in clean-energy development.  In the midst of a worsening climate crisis, we are at risk for rising energy costs for American households and businesses, while cutting investments in creating high-wage jobs that drive innovation.  For more than a decade the U.S. Department of Defense has considered climate change to be a top national security concern, recognizing the increasing instability of nations around the world.  We cannot afford to ignore the very real effects of climate change happening all around us.

3. Three billion North American birds have vanished since 1970, which, according to Audubon, tells a story about the health of the environment, offering insights into the increasing danger of our ecosystems and how we can protect them. The rigorous data required to track what is happening in our environment has been supplied every four years since 2000 by the National Climate Assessment, a public document mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990.  The last climate assessment came out in 2023, and is used by state and local governments, as well as private companies, to help prepare for the effects of changing climate on human health, agriculture, fisheries, water supplies, transportation, energy production, and other aspects of our economy.  Yet in April, 2025, the federal government cut funds and support for the next report (due in early 2028), and in July, the website globalchange.gov, which had made more than 200 publications available for the public and Congress, went dark.  Dr.Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist at Texas Tech University, warns that failure to address climate change will jeopardize "our food and water systems, our infrastructure and our health systems," as well as "affecting your home, your insurance rates, your food, the plants and animals that you see around you."  

4.  The health of the world we share with all living creatures depends on restoring grasslands, wetlands, and forests, all of which store carbon, support biodiversity, and contribute to clean air and water by helping to protect us from the ravages of climate change.  Under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the federal government has been required to issue the National Climate Assessment every four years since 2000, which guides local and state governments and private companies in preparing for the effects of climate-related events including heat waves, floods, and droughts.  Funding to the report was cut in April, 2025, and the website globalchange.gov went dark in July, but previous versions of the website can be found using the nonprofit Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.  Another site, climate.gov, which had been maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has also been shut down (the climate.gov website now redirects users to noaa.gov/climate), which is a "pale substitute," according to an author of the first National Climate Assessment in 2000, who worries that risks from global warming driven by fossil fuels and rising levels of greenhouse gases are being withheld from the public.