FRANCES BEINECKE

The oceans produce up to 70 percent of our oxygen, they shape our climate, and they support an American oceans economy larger than our nation's entire agriculture sector.

When I left school, I never wondered whether my apartment in New York was vulnerable to storm surges, but my three daughters have to consider the realities of extreme weather and how it may destabilize communities around the globe.

Business leaders, social justice groups, farmers and ranchers, doctors and nurses and people from all walks of life are concerned about the climate threat.

Protecting eagles from the threat of extinction is a conservation success story that we must prudently safeguard for future generations to come.

We'll always need energy. We need to communicate, too, but we're not stuck with hand gestures and smoke signals. There are better ways to power our future than by digging fossil fuel from the ground and setting it on fire.

The U.S. limits mercury, arsenic, and soot from power plants. Yet, astonishingly, there are no national limits on how much carbon pollution these plants can dump into our atmosphere.

Opening up Atlantic and Arctic waters to drilling would lock the next generation into burning oil and gas in a way that only makes climate change that much worse, fueling ever rising seas, widening deserts, withering drought, blistering heat, raging storms, wildfires, floods and other hallmarks of climate chaos.

The phrase 'mad as a hatter' was coined because hat makers were poisoned by the high levels of mercury used in felt processing; these workers developed a strange, uneven gait as well as strange alterations in their personalities - traits that resembled mental instability.

Instead of hazarding our future on the dirty fuels of the past, let's invest in clean power that can drive this country forward. Let's cut energy waste, make our economy the world's most efficient, and give our workers a leg up in the global marketplace.

Climate change deniers would have us believe that oil, gas, and coal are the only ways to power a modern, industrialized society. They are wrong, and the proof is all around us.

I have talked to people across the country struggling in the face of an altered climate. New Jersey homeowners are trying to rebuild after Superstorm Sandy. Miami government officials are trying to plan for rising seas and flooded streets. California farmers are trying to make it through the state's worst drought on record.

Pollution from oil and gas development, toxic runoff, and miles and miles of plastic trash foul the waters and threaten marine life.

In grownups, mercury can cause memory loss, tremors, vision loss and numbness of the fingers and toes. It can also adversely affect fertility and blood pressure regulation, and a growing body of evidence suggests that exposure to mercury may lead to heart disease.

The science tells us that if we fail to reduce global warming pollution, global temperatures will rise to dangerous levels and unleash devastating extreme weather events and accelerate destructive sea level rise.

Shell has poured billions of dollars into offshore Arctic drilling, but no matter how much it spends, it cannot make the effort anything but a terrifying gamble. And if Shell, the most profitable company on Earth, can't buy its way to safety in Alaska, nobody can.

Water efficiency, recycling, and other local supplies will help California flourish in a drier future.

Studies show that women are more likely than men to die in natural disasters. Women's voices must be heard.

Declaring the San Gabriel Mountains a national monument will make this natural wonder more accessible. It will welcome people from all walks of life and maintain the mountains' wild character at the same time.

New York and Connecticut belong to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to cut carbon emissions, and New York City has been a leader in energy efficiency.

In the end, the market will decide which is the better performer: dirty coal-fired power or clean wind and solar. Market-based competition. That doesn't sound like communism to me.

For decades, NRDC has created and supported policies that will ultimately end our reliance on fossil fuels.

Instead of going to the ends of the Earth - and plumbing the depths of the oceans - to squeeze out every last drop of oil, we need, instead, to do everything we can to reduce the risks of offshore oil and gas production.

NEPA's common sense approach to foster discussion and collaboration about major development projects has worked well to protect our national treasures and resources.

Mercury is a potent toxin that interferes with the human nervous system. Reducing this hazard will be a major public health breakthrough.

The San Gabriel Valley, stretching from Pasadena to Pomona, is especially starved for open space. The valley has a rich array of ethnically diverse communities, but it also has some of the highest rates of childhood obesity and diabetes in the state.