Recognizing that climate change is not a hoax, but sound science.

Recognizing that climate change is not a hoax, but sound science.

Whereas, 129 years ago, in 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius concluded that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities contribute to a global “greenhouse effect” driving global warming;

Whereas, in 1959, at a celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the fossil-fuel industry, physicist Edward Teller warned attending representatives of major oil companies that greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels cause a greenhouse gas effect and that increased use of fossil fuels would cause global warming and severe sea level rise;

Whereas, in 1968, Stanford researchers produced a report for the American Petroleum Institute, finding that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were rising, that no explanation for this rise “seem[ed] to fit the presently observed situation as well as the fossil fuel emanation theory”, and that “potential damage to our environment” from this rise “could be severe”;

Whereas, from 1970 through 2003, Exxon scientists produced a series of reports and projections on greenhouse gas-driven climate change, predicting warming of 0.20 degrees Celsius per decade, which according to recent analysis by Harvard researchers, reflected “shocking skill and accuracy”;

Whereas, in 1988, a Shell working group produced a confidential report entitled “The Greenhouse Effect”, which quantified Shell’s own contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions, predicted that global carbon dioxide levels could double by 2030, and described a series of climate change impacts, including rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and forced migration;

Whereas 99.99 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers agree that climate change is happening and that human activity, and specifically the burning of fossil fuels, is the main cause of climate change;

Whereas, as reported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), data from ice cores, rocks, tree rings, and satellites and other instruments “all show the signs of a changing climate”;

Whereas, as of August 5, 2025, NASA maintains that “there is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate” and that “[h]uman activity is the principal cause” of this warming;

Whereas, in its Sixth Climate Assessment in 2021, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that the “evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a grave and mounting threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet;

Whereas the most comprehensive source of data on climate impacts in the United States can be found in the National Climate Assessments mandated by Congress under the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (15 U.S.C. 2921 et seq.) and coordinated under the United States Global Change Research Program (established under section 103 of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (15 U.S.C. 2933)), comprising 15 Federal agencies and subject to “multiple rounds of expert and governmental review, including evaluation by Federal agencies, external experts, the public, and a National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine review committee” and published in 2000, 2009, 2014, 2017, 2018, and 2023;

Whereas a sixth National Climate Assessment was planned for 2028, but in 2025 the administration of President Donald Trump fired all the scientists and researchers working on the project, pulled the most recent National Climate Assessment offline, and shut down the United States Global Change Research Program website; and

Whereas greenhouse-gas driven climate change is driving extreme weather, sea-level rise, heat waves, catastrophic wildfires, and other disasters, which in turn are beginning to disrupt insurance, mortgage, and real estate markets: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That—

(1) climate change caused by fossil fuel combustion is not a hoax;

(2) the reality of human-caused greenhouse gas-driven climate change is sound science; and

(3) Congress should protect legislatively mandated climate research programs.