Holland-Bartels: Pioneering new climate-change policies

For Leslie Holland-Bartels of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the inclusion of Alaska's polar bears as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act was a great accomplishment.

But the 2008 federal designation also signaled much more -- the broader scientific linkage between global warming and significant changes to wildlife, critical ecosystems and biodiversity.

Working seven days a week over six months, Holland-Bartels and her 20-member international team of scientists connected projected temperature and sea ice changes in the Arctic to the loss of the polar bear habitat and food supply. Based on research, they predicted the likely disappearance of two-thirds -- or roughly 16,000 -- of the world's polar bears in the next 45 to 75 years.

"Though this was not a link that any scientist wanted to celebrate, it was science that moved many people, governments and organizations to seriously consider the reality of threats posed by climate change -- not just to plants, animals and ecosystems, but to people as well," said Martha Garcia, who works with Holland-Bartels at the U.S. Geological Survey.

Their effort provided the basis last year for the Bush administration to list the polar bear as a threatened species because of its melting ice habitat.

"This was a good example of science informing policy and decision-makers," said Robert Doyle, the deputy director of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Following their discovery, many environmental groups wanted to use the polar bear findings as justification for stronger climate change rules. Although these proposals were rejected by President Bush and then by the Obama administration, the Interior department has proposed using the data to designate more than 200,000 square miles of land, sea and ice along the northern coast of Alaska as a critical polar bear habitat.

Holland-Bartels and her team understood that the broader effort to link the polar bears and global warming would be a tough sell politically, but considered the research critical never-the-less to help inform the debate. She said her team needed to understand all the elements of the science, utilize current expert work in physical global climate computer modeling and document all of the uncertainties in a way that would contribute to conversations on global warming.

All of the materials and data gathered during the study were examined through a blind peer review vetting process to ensure the best possible work was being presented. "It was an amazing challenge scientifically. We had to be able to stand up to the scrutiny ¿ and we did," said Holland-Bartels.

She said the approach used by her team can be applied conceptually as a model to a "whole suite of species" that might be affected by climate change.

Anne Kissinger, Holland-Bartels' supervisor, considers the listing of the polar bear as a threatened species a major policy milestone. The study convinced "a very skeptical administration and the biological management community and conservation community to look at how climate change is going to affect our natural resources and our lives," she said.

"There is no doubt that this science couldn't have been pulled off without Leslie. She took the challenge and ran with it without hesitation, displayed an amazing amount of management skill and worked at all levels of the organization to make this happen," said Kissinger.

Garcia said there is a strong conflict between the need to sustain economies and the realization that the byproducts of those economies -- greenhouse gasses -- are contributing to the warming of the planet.

"Because of the ambitious and innovative efforts of Holland-Bartels and her team, we now have a solid, transparent and objective understanding of the consequences of climate change," said Garcia.

This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Visit www.ourpublicservice.org for more about the organization's work and go to www.servicetoamericamedals.org to nominate a federal employee for a Service to America Medal.