[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.)
____________________