Climate-changing Pollution Impacts Water, too

By Jonathan A. Scott, Clean Water Action Communications Staff

The referenced media source is missing and needs to be re-embedded.

Even more strongly and conclusively than previous research efforts, today's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) implicates human-caused pollution as the cause of changing temperatures, warming of the oceans and melting glaciers. Reducing this pollution will have multiple benefits beyond reducing climate change's many harmful impacts. These include benefits for health and benefits for those countries and economies best positioned to capitalize on the savings, business opportunities and jobs associated with more efficient energy use and growth in renewable energy technologies. But the benefits for our water may be even more important. As EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy commented recently, "Climate change is really about water." All of today's water problems are made worse by a changing climate.  All of today's outdated fossil fuel and nuclear energy sources consume, waste and pollute vast quantities of water, and are unsustainable by that measure alone. Addressing the human-caused pollution which is driving climate change could pay off first and biggest for our water. All those other benefits will follow quickly.