Human beings are now making profound changes to the environment on a global scale by altering landscapes, the atmosphere, and the oceans. The science aimed at understanding these changes has grown from research, primarily in the physical sciences, aimed at understanding climate change towards a synthetic global change science that also incorporates ecological and social sciences. Global change science is “focused on the accurate characterization of the vulnerability and resilience of natural and managed ecosystems and human society to global change.” (Our Changing Planet: the FY 2001 U.S. Global Change Research Program). Much of the research in this area is conducted under the auspices of the multi-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). Because there are major policy implications of this research, new mechanisms are needed to provide “useful scientific products that contribute to the information needs of decisionmakers.”

The importance and popularity of this topic led to the formation of two concurrent and independent sections. Each section (A and B) developed its own set of recommendations.

Section A: Global Environmental Change
RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Interdisciplinary Decisionmaking Framework for Science
The Administration should more broadly support “Science for Sound Decision Making” regimes by establishing a multi-agency and multi-disciplinary research initiative on human responses to global environmental threats.

2. Environmental Indicator Service
The Administration should establish an Environmental Indicator Service that would:

• include a monitoring system of key indicators
• develop and use models for environmental forecasting
• conduct large scale experiments within a new regional network proposed as Terrestrial Environmental Research Facilities (TERF)
• communicate ongoing information about the status of the environment
• develop and implement a top-down strategy for directing research to inform decisionmaking.

3. Communication of Science
The Administration and Congress should fund programs that provide the effective communication of science to the public, journalists, funders and decisionmakers.

4. Environmental Education (K-Graduate) Environmental Education programs should:

• develop flexible, fun, and relevant teaching material; promote teacher education through involvement in research, incentives and standards
• teach science as a process.

5. A Broad Global Environmental Change Program
The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) should:

• examine the human causes and consequences of global change
• have the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) ensure that the CHIEF initiative of the National Research Council (NRC) is further defined and then implemented by a suite of agencies
• continue along directions defined by the National Assessment for the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).

6. Relationship between Global, Regional, and Local Change
The U.S. Global Change Research Program should:

• develop an understanding of how global change plays out at regional and local scales
• consider how human action at local and regional scales affects global change.

Section B: Global Environmental Change
RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Infrastructure for National Assessments
The United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) should establish a permanent infrastructure for national assessments, including secretariat functions with permanent scientific staff and outreach capability.

2. Extreme Climate Effects
The USGCRP should expand research programs at regional levels on the probability and consequences of extreme climate effects.

3. Interdisciplinary Research
The National Science Foundation (NSF) should enhance incentives for interdisciplinary research integrating natural and social sciences.

4. Land Use, Land-use Change, and Forestry
Congress should direct and fund the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Department of Interior (DOI), and other relevant departments and agencies to develop a highly integrated, multi-agency program for the study of land use, land use change, and forest management.

5. Communication Plan
The scientific community and end users should develop a communication plan outlining criteria for a delivery system through which scientific information may be presented to the public and policy makers in a digestible form.

6. Observational and Research Efforts
Federal agencies need to fund long-term (50-100 years) observational and research efforts through endowments established by Congress.

7. Teacher Training
The NSF and the Department of Energy (DOE) should fund teacher training programs in global environmental change that involve international components.

8. Environmental Vulnerability Index
The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and NSF should fund the development of an “Environmental Vulnerability Index” that is relevant to human populations, and comprehensive in scope, integrating major human activities that degrade local, regional, and global environments.

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