[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 165 (Monday, December 19, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14024-S14025]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                CLIMATE CHANGE NEGOTIATIONS AND IMPACTS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, with a sense of continued disappointment and 
dismay I read accounts of the administration's performance at the 
recent international climate change meetings in Montreal, Canada.
   The President has been crystal clear in his complete rejection of 
the Kyoto Protocol treaty that all other major industrialized nations 
have signed, except the United States and Australia. Yet he has 
regularly failed to put forward a constructive alternative that will 
ever result in stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the 
atmosphere. Worse, his negotiators have disrupted other nations' 
efforts to begin binding discussions for the post-Kyoto Protocol 
period.
  This is not and cannot be a partisan issue. But the President's 
stubborn insistence on ignoring credible science and his 
administration's efforts to water down clear scientific evidence of 
manmade global warming has hobbled many Republicans' ability to act 
sensibly on this matter.
  We have a moral obligation to take on our enormous share of 
responsibility for this global problem before it

[[Page S14025]]

is too late. Ignoring the problem is madness and a luxury we do not 
have the time for. The scientific data continues to flow in and none of 
it is good.
  I urge my colleagues not to fall for the temptation of the 
administration's voluntary ``technology-only'' strategy. That will fail 
to produce any significant reductions in the timeframe necessary. There 
is abundant cause for concern and for faster action.
  I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record some of the most 
recent scientific information on the potential impacts of global 
warming on Nevada and the West, as well as the rest of the country and 
the world.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Potential Climate Changes Impact on Nevada:
       The Scripps Institution of Oceanography found, and their 
     findings were subsequently published in Nature that, ``The 
     warming trend already is showing effects in California's 
     Sierra Nevada snow pack, the region's main water source. 
     Climate models suggest average temperatures in the West will 
     be about 1 to 3 degrees warmer by 2050 than at present. Even 
     though total precipitation isn't expected to change by much, 
     because of the higher temperatures more of it will come as 
     rain rather than snow. At the same time, the spring runoff 
     will come about one month earlier in the year.'' (San 
     Francisco Chronicle, November 17, 2005--Global warming study 
     forecasts more water shortages: Climate change already 
     affecting Sierra snowpack.)
       The National Weather Service ominously reported that ``in a 
     year of record highs across northern Nevada, conditions are 
     on pace for this October (2005) to be the hottest on record, 
     said Gary Barbato of the National Weather Service. During 
     2003, average temperatures for the months of January, June 
     and July were all the hottest since records began in 1888, 
     with September 2003 and September 2001 tied for the warmest 
     average.'' (Reno Gazette Journal, October 21, 2003--Climate 
     experts study global warming's impact on water supplies.)
       Nevada has been blessed with a rich natural heritage. 
     ``Nevada is home to an incredible diversity of native 
     wildlife species, including 299 birds, 123 mammals, 48 fish, 
     52 reptiles and 13 amphibians. Rising temperatures in the 
     state though will likely change the makeup of entire 
     ecosystems, forcing wildlife to shift their ranges or adapt. 
     Loss of wildlife and habitat could mean a loss of tourism 
     dollars. In 2001 alone, more than 657,000 people spent more 
     than $680 million on hunting, fishing and wildlife viewing in 
     Nevada, which in turn created more than 9,400 jobs in the 
     state.'' (ESPN Outdoors, March 15, 2005--Hunters give big 
     bucks to local economies: Pursuers of game big and small can 
     tip the financial scale from red to black in small 
     communities, and it underscores the fact that the sport is 
     expensive.)
       One animal that is already being impacted by climate change 
     in Nevada is the pika. According to researchers, between the 
     1940s and the 1990s, six of 25 pika populations throughout 
     the Western states disappeared, largely because of rising 
     temperatures. When the same sites were visited again between 
     2003 and 2005, a research biologist found that two more pika 
     populations had winked out of existence in that ten year 
     period. (High Country News, October 17, 2005--In the Great 
     Basin, scientists track global warming.).
       Fire climatology--Collaborative studies involving the 
     Desert Research Institute show that changes in relative 
     humidity, especially drying over much of the West, are 
     projected to increase the number of days of high fire danger 
     by as much as 2-3 weeks throughout the Great Basin during 
     this century.
       Flood magnitude and frequency--A Desert Research Institute 
     scientist has shown that increased sea surface temperatures 
     in the Gulf of Mexico affect the timing of the onset of the 
     North American monsoon, with important implications for the 
     magnitude and frequency of heavy rainfall (and flooding) in 
     southern Nevada.
       Scientists from the Desert Research Institute, and the 
     University of Nevada at Reno and at Las Vegas have been 
     conducting controlled field and laboratory experiments on the 
     effects of increased CO2 on ecosystems, the carbon 
     cycle, and stability of desert soils in the Mojave Desert of 
     southern Nevada. Initial results show that elevated 
     CO2 has the potential to increase the productivity 
     of invasive grasses (e.g., cheat grass) and thereby 
     accelerate the fire cycle and reduce biodiversity in the 
     Great Basin.
       Potential Climate Change Impacts on the West:
       The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory released a 
     scientific report last February which showed ``from 1950 to 
     1997, in Oregon, western Washington and northern California, 
     snow pack shrank by 50 to 75 percent. Decreases in the 
     northern Rockies during that period ranged between 15 and 30 
     percent. The reduction in Western mountain snow cover, from 
     the Sierra Nevada range that feeds California in the south to 
     the snowcapped volcanic peaks of the Cascades in the Pacific 
     Northwest, will lead to increased fall and winter flooding, 
     severe spring and summer drought that will play havoc with 
     the West's agriculture, fisheries and hydropower industry.'' 
     (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, February 16, 2004--
     Global warming to squeeze Western mountains dry by 2050.)
       At a 2004 gathering by the American Association for the 
     Advancement of Science in Seattle, the University of 
     Washington's Climate Impacts Group detailed that ``Northwest 
     temperatures will increase by about 3 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit 
     by the 2040s, and the Cascades snowpack will decline by 59 
     percent by 2050.'' (AP, February 17, 2004--Warmer weather 
     spells trouble for Northwest.)
       The United States Environmental Protection Agency's website 
     has documented how global warming and climate change are 
     diminishing the beauty of Glacier National Park. ``Today, the 
     park's largest glaciers are only about a third of the size 
     they were in 1850, and many small mountain glaciers have 
     disappeared completely during the past 150 years. The area of 
     the park covered by glaciers declined by 73 percent from 
     1850-1993.'' (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 
     August 13, 2001--Global Warming Impacts: Western Mountains.)
       In 2004, a study was published in the magazine titled 
     Conservation Biology about the severe impacts that climate 
     change could have on the wildfire season in Montana. ``Of all 
     the Western states, Montana's wildfire season could be most 
     affected by the warmer temperatures associated with global 
     climate change'', according to a new report. Published in 
     Conservation Biology magazine, the research suggests the 
     acreage burned each summer in Montana could increase five-
     fold by the end of the century. Overall, the area burned by 
     wildfires in 11 Western states could double by 2100 if the 
     summertime climate warms by 1.6 degrees, the scientists said. 
     (The Missoulian, September 1, 2004--Report details global 
     warming's role in wildfire risk.)
       Potential Climate Change Impacts on the Nation and the 
     World:
       The Division of Geological and Planetary Science at the 
     California Institute of Technology, the Department of 
     Geological Sciences at the University of Michigan, and the 
     Department of Geology at the Occidental College recently 
     collaborated to publish an article about Glacial Erosion. The 
     article, which was published in the December issue of 
     Science, found that ``levels of carbon dioxide 
     (CO2), the principal gas that drives global 
     warming, are now 27 pct higher than at any point in the last 
     650,000 years, according to research into Antarctic ice 
     cores.'' (Forbes, November 24, 2005--Carbon dioxide levels 
     highest for 650,000 years.)
       On November 29, 2005, the European Environment Agency 
     warned that ``at current global warming rates, three-quarters 
     of Switzerland's glaciers will have melted by 2050. Ten 
     percent of Alpine glaciers disappeared during the summer of 
     2003.'' (Associated Press, November 29, 2005--Global warming 
     set to hit Europe badly: environment agency.)
       At a recent meeting (2005) of the American Geophysical 
     Union, scientists described how ``climate warming is most 
     likely to blame for the alarmingly fast retreat of two of 
     Greenland's largest glaciers. One of the Greenland glaciers, 
     Kangerdlugssuaq, is currently moving at about nine miles a 
     year compared to three miles a year in 2001, said Gordon 
     Hamilton of the University of Maine's Climate Change 
     Institute. The other glacier, Helheim, is speeding at about 
     seven miles a year--up from four miles a year during the same 
     period.'' In addition, ``Alaska's Columbia Glacier--about the 
     size of Los Angeles--has shrunk nine miles since the 1980s. 
     It is expected to lose an additional nine miles in the next 
     15 to 20 years. (The San Jose Mercury News, December 8, 
     2005--Scientists: Greenland glaciers pick up speed because of 
     warming.)
       The academic journal Nature has published a scientific 
     study indicating that the ``system of circulating water 
     currents that moderates northern Europe's weather is 30 
     percent slower than it was nearly 50 years ago. The slowdown 
     is due in part to the water's declining salinity caused by 
     the addition of less dense freshwater from melting Arctic sea 
     ice and glaciers.'' Harry Bryden, an oceanography professor 
     at Britain's University of Southampton and the paper's lead 
     author said that ``the slowing is in line with computer 
     models that suggest that Earth's warming climate could weaken 
     and eventually halt the conveyor belt circulation altogether, 
     causing northern Europe to become as much as 11 degrees 
     Fahrenheit cooler in a matter of decades.'' (Contra Costa 
     Times, December 1, 2005--Scientists find ocean-current 
     changes. )
       The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 
     recorded a record twenty six named storms formed during the 
     2005 Atlantic hurricane season easily surpassing the previous 
     record of twenty one in 1933. A record for the most category-
     five hurricanes, three, with Katrina, Rita and Wilma was also 
     set. (CNN, November 30, 2005--It's official: 2005 hurricanes 
     blew records away.)

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