Resolution 7476 - Laserfiche WebLink

mi EVERETT WASHINGTON RESOLUTION NO. 7476 A RESOLUTION DECLARING A CLIMATE CRISIS AND CALLING FOR ACTIONS TO RESTORE A SAFE CLIMATE WHEREAS, 1. The greenhouse gas effect, trapping gases and warming earth's atmosphere, has been well documented for over 150 years; and 2. In 1896 Svant Arrhenius, a Swedish physicist and chemist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903, was the first to use basic principles of chemistry and physics to estimate how increases in carbon dioxide can increase Earth's temperature; and 3. In 1960 Dr. Charles David Keeling was the first to measure the progressive buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (the Keeling Curve), and alert the world to the possibility of anthropogenic global warming; and 4. Keeling's research documented atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide growing from 315 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to 380 ppm in 2005, with increases correlated to fossil fuel emissions with a cumulative effect; and 5. Today carbon dioxide levels are in excess of 410 ppm, estimated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to be the highest atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide in 3 million years, when earth's temperature was 2° to 3°Celcius (3.6° to 5.4°Fahrenheit) higher than during the pre-industrial era, and sea level was 15 to 25 meters (50 to 80 feet) higher than today; and 6. Carbon dioxide levels have been steadily increasing unabated since measurements began. Once in the atmosphere and oceans, they remain for centuries resulting in significant cumulative impacts. There is a lag between the release of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases (GHG)) and impacts such as warmer atmosphere and oceans, extreme weather events, fires and sea level rise; and 7. Other GHGs contribute to global warming including methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbon, and water vapor. Of these, methane exists in large and rapidly increasing concentrations. It is many times more powerful as a heat trapping gas than carbon dioxide, and due in part to warmer temperatures and natural gas extraction, is being released in larger amounts; and