Tell Our Senators to Support Resolution to Protect Our Oceans

From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):

Marine life is suffering, ocean temperatures are rising, and we’re losing entire marine ecosystems. Our oceans need our help.¹

Now, a new resolution could provide a starting point. The Thirty by Thirty Resolution to Save Nature sets out to conserve 30 percent of American land and oceans by 2030.²

Go to https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=36898 to tell our U.S. senators: Support this resolution to protect our oceans and the life that calls them home.

Introduced by U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Michael Bennet, the resolution creates a roadmap for reversing the damage done to ecosystems and wildlife by the climate crisis. Scientists have said that conserving at least 30 percent of the ocean and land by 2030 is the first step we can take to address the climate, biodiversity and extinction crisis. The same report states that preserving our forests is necessary for carbon sequestering, and preserving our oceans is just as vital to prevent species extinctions and the rapid erosion of biodiversity.³

The resolution plans to do this by:

• Using our lands and oceans to sequester and store carbon.
• Working primarily on areas that are ecologically meaningful, to preserve as many biologically important species as possible.
• Recovering and restoring species at risk of extinction by preserving their habitats.
• Stabilizing ecosystems and restoring degraded ecosystems.⁴

As water temperatures rise and turn our oceans acidic, our wildlife are losing habitat, and our oceans are losing life. And the problem is rapidly worsening. Today, oceans are heating up 40 percent faster on average than just five years ago, resulting in habitat loss and deaths of entire marine ecosystems.⁵

We need to do everything we can to protect our oceans. And to protect our oceans, we need to conserve them.

Tell your senators: Support the Thirty by Thirty resolution to conserve our oceans.

If passed, this legislation would not only be a sweeping action to address species loss and degradation to our environment, but would also be a giant step forward in our nation’s conservation actions. The problems our environment faces, such as major habitat loss and mass extinctions, can sometimes feel too big to tackle, but this legislation outlines exactly what actions the country can take to solve them.

PennEnvironment and our national network have joined coalition partners in signing onto a letter to legislators to support this resolution. Now, you can too.

Add your name.

1. Ivana Kottasova, “Oceans are warming at the same rate as if Hiroshima bombs were dropped in every second,” CNN, January 13, 2020.
2. Rebecca Beitsch “Bennet, Udall aim to conserve 30 percent of US lands by 2030,” The Hill, October 22, 2019.
3. E. Dinerstein et al., “A Global Deal For Nature: Guiding principles, milestones, and targets,” Science Advances, April 3, 2019.
4. “Udall, Bennet Introduce Major Resolution to Set National Conservation Goal: Conserve 30% of U.S. Lands and Ocean by 2030,” Office of Senator Udall, October 22, 2019.
5. Kendra Pierre-Louis, “Ocean Warming Is Accelerating Faster Than Thought, New Research Finds,” The New York Times, January 10, 2019.