(Barbara) Boxer leads the fight for polar bears.

Rodger Schlickeisen
Defenders of Wildlife
10.25.07

Good news from Washington! The U.S. Senate is getting serious about protecting polar bears and other wildlife threatened by global warming… and California Senator Barbara Boxer is leading the fight.

Last week, Senator Boxer signed on as an original co-sponsor of the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act, a bill introduced by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse that calls for a national strategy to safeguard wildlife and habitat impacted by global warming.

Global warming could be devastating for many species. North Carolina’s endangered red wolves could lose vital habitat as climate change causes sea levels to rise, and polar bears could vanish from Alaska by 2050.

And right here in California, global warming threatens habitat for already-endangered chinook salmon and other coldwater fish species. Warmer, drier conditions caused by global warming could also reduce Central Valley wetlands needed by wintering populations of ducks and other waterfowl.

As Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Senator Boxer plays a key role in shaping legislation as it moves through the Senate. Put simply: we’ll need her full support if the Global Warming Wildlife Survival Act is going to become law.

Thanks in part to the efforts of activists like you, the House of Representatives passed its own version of the Wildlife Survival Act last month as part of its energy bill. Now, it’s the Senate’s turn to act.

Global warming is a big problem, but I know that -- with your help and the support of lawmakers like Senator Boxer -- we can enact concrete solutions to protect wildlife from the harmful effects of climate change.