The Wilderness Society has worked for over 70 years to defend America's wilderness areas and public lands to ensure clean air and water, provide wildlife habitat, and preserve opportunities for recreation and spiritual renewal for future generations.  Global climate change poses an unprecedented threat to the health of wilderness and other lands that we have dedicated ourselves to protecting and to the biodiversity that these lands support.  It is equally a threat to the human experiences and values that so many people associate with such places.  The Society is committed to addressing the causes and consequences of climate change in order to preserve a healthy and livable planet that is rich with beauty, wonder, and thriving human and biological communities.

We commit our substantial expertise in advocacy, policy, communications, and scientific research toward the protection of lands, plants, animals and cultures threatened by climate change, and toward the enactment of policies necessary to achieve these goals.  By working with others who share this vision, we believe we can help to avoid the worst long-term effects of global warming.  There is an urgent need for Congress to adopt economically efficient and equitable measures to achieve substantial reductions in U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.  A national commitment is needed to a new energy strategy that will protect our climate, security, economy, health, and environment. 

The Wilderness Society calls on Congress to take immediate action to require greenhouse gas emission reductions to meet the nation's commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  The Wilderness society also will undertake an aggressive reduction of our organizational carbon footprint and identify other means of minimizing and offsetting its impact on our global climate.