Spectators or participants: How can SETAC become more engaged in international climate change research programs?

• Published in: Environmental toxicology and chemistry Vol. 36; no. 8; pp. 1971 - 1977
• Main Authors: Stahl, Ralph G., Stauber, Jennifer L., Clements, William H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.08.2017
• Subjects: Agrochemicals; Air pollution; Carbon dioxide; Chemical contaminants; Chemical pollution; Chemists; Chlorination; Climate; Climate Change; Climate change research; Climate science; Contaminant; Contaminants; Ecological effects; Ecotoxicology - methods; Environmental effects; Environmental Pollution - analysis; Environmental toxicology; Global climate; Global temperatures; Greenhouse effect; Greenhouse gases; Humans; Models, Theoretical; Pesticides; Pesticides - toxicity; Program Development; Radiative forcing; Research programs; Societies, Scientific; Spectators; Spring (season); Toxicology; United Nations; Wildlife; Environmental toxicology; Climate change; Contaminant
• DOI: 10.1002/etc.3868
• ISSN: 0730-7268

Environmental toxicologists and chemists have been crucial to evaluating the chemical fate and toxicological effects of environmental contaminants, including chlorinated pesticides, before and after Rachel Carson's publication of Silent Spring in 1962. Like chlorinated pesticides previously, global climate change is widely considered to be one of the most important environmental challenges of our time. Over the past 30 yr, climate scientists and modelers have shown that greenhouse gases such as CO2 and CH4 cause radiative forcing (climate forcing) and lead to increased global temperatures. Despite significant climate change research efforts worldwide, the climate science community has overlooked potential problems associated with chemical contaminants, in particular how climate change could magnify the ecological consequences of their use and disposal. It is conceivable that the impacts of legacy or new chemical contaminants on wildlife and humans may be exacerbated when climate changes, especially if global temperatures rise as predicted. This lack of attention to chemical contaminants represents an opportunity for environmental toxicologists and chemists to become part of the global research program, and our objective is to highlight the importance of and ways for that to occur. Environ Toxicol Chem 2017;36:1971–1977. © 2017 SETAC