Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our guests. It's really interesting, the different perspectives you have given us today, and the opportunities for us to dig into some of your expertise and come out with some solid ideas to help us chart the course for the next couple of years when we are the chair of the Arctic Council, which, by the way, is what we're trying to do here.
I've said this before, and many others around this table have said that this is an opportunity for us to work in a multi-partisan way, if we can put it that way, in the best interests of the country. This is an opportunity to do just that.
Ms. Grant, I want to start with you because right now, as we speak, the international conference on climate change is taking place. There are reports that should shock everyone around this table, such as the recent reports of the melting of Arctic sea ice. Just to give people an idea of the size of the area, it's larger than the entire United States. This is beyond what they had predicted. It's happening as we speak, and I'm not sure we're all seized with it.
We heard from witnesses at the last meeting about the issue of methane. You mentioned it as well. I know you're not a climate scientist. I hope we'll have witnesses in that area come to our committee. Maybe you could give us an appreciation of how important it is to be seized with the issue of the changing climate, and what particular areas we should be focused on when it comes to that. Obviously, mitigation has kind of left the barn. It's about adaptation, and you said stabilization.
Could you give us a bit more on that?