[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 83 (Thursday, June 9, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3675-S3677]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
GLOBAL WARMING
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here this afternoon because, on
May 12, 2011, the National Academy of Sciences released a significant
report entitled ``America's Climate Choices.'' In 2007, Congress
directed the academy to write this report. The researchers who
contributed to the report include scientists, economists, and
policymakers from world-class institutions such as the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, DuPont, and MIT. The list of the States from which
the committee comes is very broad: California--scientists came from--
North Carolina, Maryland, Georgia, Virginia, Michigan, Wyoming,
Washington State, Tennessee, Arizona, Missouri, Massachusetts, New
York, New Jersey, Colorado, and Texas. The report was peer reviewed.
I ask unanimous consent that at the end of my remarks the list of the
committee, which is page V of the report, be printed as an exhibit.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1)
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The report was peer reviewed by academic reviewers
from such universities as Stanford, the University of Texas, the
University of South Carolina, Harvard, and Carnegie Mellon. Yet this
significant report, requested by Congress, drafted by experts, peer
reviewed by science, has fallen on deaf ears in our Nation's Capital.
Why is this? Is it because the report addresses a problem we have
already solved? No. Is it because the report tells us not to worry? No;
it is not that either. The report, ``America's Climate Choices,'' adds
to the body of climate science evidence and reflects the clear
consensus of the scientific community, which is that carbon pollution
is creating dangers across our planet and must be addressed if we are
to avoid its most disastrous consequences.
These are the facts in the report:
Climate change is occurring. It is very likely caused by
human activities and poses significant risks for a broad
range of human and natural systems.
Are we prepared for these significant risks? No, we are not,
concludes the report. I quote again:
The United States lacks an overarching national strategy to
respond to climate change.
The report warns further:
Waiting for unacceptable impacts to occur before taking
action is imprudent because the effects of greenhouse gas
emissions do not fully manifest themselves for decades and,
once manifested . . . will persist for hundreds or even
thousands of years.
Starkly, the report calls on us now to begin mobilizing for
adaptation. The precise quote: ``Begin mobilizing now for adaptation.''
The report is an urgent call to action by a widespread group of our
most responsible scientists, peer reviewed by our most responsible
universities. Why, then, is it being ignored? I believe many of my
colleagues are ignoring this report because they are hoping this
problem of carbon pollution changing the atmosphere and the climate of
our planet will go away. They are hoping that somehow, if we don't
discuss it--indeed, if we deny it--climate change will not happen. If
we ignore the laws of physics and chemistry and biology, those laws may
cease to apply to us. We can repeal a lot of laws in this Senate, but
we cannot repeal the laws of nature, and we are fools to ignore them.
Some even attack the underlying science; this is a strategy that is
as old as industry reaction to science industry does not like. A recent
book looked at the EPA efforts to protect us from secondhand smoke at a
time when the tobacco industry wanted the unregulated ability to smoke
and did not want people protected from secondhand smoke and pretended
secondhand smoke was not dangerous. The writers conclude:
Most of the science upon which the EPA relied with respect
to secondhand smoke was independent, so attacks on the EPA
wouldn't work alone. They have to be coupled with attacks on
the science itself.
A memo from Philip Morris's communications director, Victor Han, said
the following:
Without a major concentrated effort to expose the
scientific weaknesses of the EPA case, without an effort to
build considerable reasonable doubt, then virtually all other
efforts will be significantly diminished in effectiveness.
In other words, in order to create doubt, they had to attack the
science directly, and they have done so, to the point where Mr. Han
said the EPA is an agency that is, at least, misguided and aggressive
and, at worst, corrupt and controlled by environmental terrorists.
So it is not a news story for industry to try to deny the science
that shows the danger of what an industry is providing. But these
attacks simply will not stand. The facts are too strong against them.
Over the last 800,000 years, Earth's atmosphere has contained
CO2 levels of 170 to 300 parts per million. That is solid
science. That is a fact. That is not a theory. It is not in dispute.
That is the range within which humankind has lived for 8,000 centuries.
By the way, it is not clear that 8,000 centuries ago mankind had yet
mastered the art of controlling fire. Essentially, the entirety of
human history has taken place within that bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts
per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
In 1863, the Irish scientist John Tyndall determined that carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere trapped heat and trapped more heat as the
concentration of carbon dioxide increases. That is textbook science. It
has been textbook science for generations. That is not in dispute
either.
Since the Industrial Revolution, our industrialized societies had
burned carbon fuels in measurable amounts, usually measured as gigatons
or metric tons. A gigaton, by the way, is a billion, with a B, metric
tons. We now release, depending on the year, up to 7 or 8 gigatons--7
or 8 billion metric tons--each year. That is not in dispute either.
We now measure carbon concentrations going up in the Earth's
atmosphere. Again, that is a measurement. This is not a theory. The
present concentration exceeds 390 parts per million. Remember, for
8,000 centuries, humanity has existed in a bandwidth of 170 to 300
parts per million, and we are now at 390 parts per million--well
outside the bounds we have inhabited for the last 800,000 years. That
also is not in dispute. That is a fact.
[[Page S3676]]
``America's Climate Choices'' documents the changes in climate that
have already been observed and measured in the United States. Again,
not theory but documented, measured, and observed. These are also not
in dispute. Over the past 50 years, our U.S. average air temperature
has increased by more than two degrees Fahrenheit. Our total U.S.
precipitation has increased, on average, by about 5 percent. Sea levels
have risen along most of the U.S. coasts. Heavy downpours have become
more frequent and more intense in the Southeastern and Western United
States and the frequency of large wildfires and the length of the fire
season have increased substantially in both the Western United States
and in the Presiding Officer's home State of Alaska.
If we take a look at the increase in carbon concentrations in our
atmosphere, they can be plotted. Today is one of the last days our
pages are with us after many months, and they have been here in school
in the very early mornings. They have been learning mathematics, and it
wouldn't surprise me if our pages were able to take a series of points
and plot a trajectory off of those points. That is not a complicated
scientific endeavor. If we plot the trajectory of our carbon
concentration, it puts us at 688 parts per million in the year 2095,
and 1,097 parts per million in the year 2195. That is a pretty long way
off, but when we think that for 800,000 years we have inhabited a
planet in which the carbon concentration in the atmosphere was between
170 and 700 parts per million and in a matter of a century and a little
more we will have more than doubled that concentration and another
century hence another 300 points up, that is a very significant--
indeed, an epic--shift. These carbon concentrations are outside the
bounds not of the last 8,000 centuries but of millions of years of this
planet's history.
The National Academy of Science report warns us this way as well:
In addition to the potential impacts that we are able to
identify, there is a real possibility of impacts that have
not been anticipated.
Let me say that again:
In addition to the potential impacts that we are able to
identify, there is a real possibility of impacts that have
not been anticipated.
When we travel outside a range that has protected our species and our
planet for 8,000 centuries, we create forces that are hard to
anticipate and, consequently, could create dangers that are hard to
anticipate.
This National Academy of Sciences report does not just stop at
cataloging the effects of climate change, however. As requested by
Congress and as indicated by the report's title--``America's Climate
Choices''--the report lays out the choices we have moving forward, if
only we will acknowledge the facts of this problem and act responsibly.
The laws of nature, of course, do not care if we are paying
attention. Climate change is happening and it poses grave risks to us
and it will go forward whether or not we choose to acknowledge it. As I
said earlier, we can do a lot of repealing of laws in this Senate, but
we don't get to repeal the laws of nature. There are real risks we are
facing, but there are also many positive reasons we should address the
problem of carbon pollution. Developing clean and truly renewable
energy sources and working to run our American businesses more
efficiently will help us retain our economic leadership in the global
marketplace, and that means jobs for Americans.
Here is the report again on the potential harm to our economy if we
don't invest in a clean energy future:
The European Union has already increased its reliance on
renewable energy and put a price on CO2 emissions
from major sources without detectable adverse economic
effects. China has placed low carbon and clean energy
industries at the heart of the country's strategy for
industrial growth, and is making large scale public
investments (for instance, in ``smart grid'' energy
transmission systems) to support this growth. . . . Firms
operating in the United States could find themselves
increasingly out of step with the rest of the world and
without the same robust domestic markets for climate-friendly
products. Moreover, U.S. firms in energy-intensive sectors
could be disadvantaged relative to their more energy
efficient foreign competitors if energy prices rise in coming
decades. . . .
That is no idle speculation. We are already seeing the United States
fall behind in clean energy technologies. We invented the first solar
cell. We now rank fifth among the countries that manufacture solar
components--fifth. The United States has only 1 of the top 10 companies
manufacturing solar energy components and only 1 of the top 10
companies manufacturing wind turbines.
Half of America's installed wind turbines were manufactured overseas.
Portsmouth, RI, has installed two wind turbines. One was manufactured
by a Danish company. The other was manufactured by an Austrian company,
its components delivered to Rhode Island by a Canadian distributor.
Imagine if we drove demand for domestic manufacturing of wind turbines,
of solar cells and panels, of rechargeable batteries. Imagine the
people we could put back to work, the factories we could reopen, the
energy this growth would infuse into our economy.
The new energy economy that beckons us has been described in
congressional testimony as bigger than the tech revolution that brought
us our laptops and our iPads and these BlackBerries, and the Internet
services that are now such an important part of our daily lives,
whether we Twitter or go on eBay or shop Amazon or do Facebook. In 15
years, that Internet grew from nothing to a $1 trillion economy--a $1
trillion economy. By comparison, the global energy economy is $6
trillion. We do not, as a country, want to fall out of the race to
control that new energy economy. Yet that is exactly what we are doing.
America designed much of the underlying energy technology the world
is using. But other countries have set smart policies and provided
financial incentives to their industries, and now they are pulling away
from us in bringing those new technologies to market. A $6 trillion
market, and our foreign competitors are pulling away from us in
bringing our own technologies to that market. Our competitors are
seizing the advantage in the development and deployment of new energy
technologies, and we are letting them.
But we can still change this trajectory. We can face up to the facts
of climate change, see the opportunity in that looming threat,
strengthen our economy, and create jobs. The National Academy of
Sciences report is just one more reminder of this historic charge to
our Congress--a historic charge at which right now we are failing in
our duty.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor.
Exhibit 1
Committee on America's Climate Choices
ALBERT CARNESALE (Chair), University of California, Los
Angeles
WILLIAM CHAMEIDES (Vice-Chair), Duke University, Durham,
North Carolina
DONALD F. BOESCH, University of Maryland Center for
Environmental Science, Cambridge
MARILYN A. BROWN, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
JONATHAN CANNON, University of Virginia, Charlottesville
THOMAS DIETZ, Michigan State University, East Lansing
GEORGE C. EADS, Charles River Associates, Washington, D.C.
ROBERT W. FRI, Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C.
JAMES E. GERINGER, Environmental Systems Research
Institute, Cheyenne, Wyoming
DENNIS L. HARTMANN, University of Washington, Seattle
CHARLES O. HOLLIDAY, JR., DuPont (Ret.), Nashville,
Tennessee
KATHARINE L. JACOBS,* Arizona Water Institute, Tucson
THOMAS KARL,* NOAA, Asheville, North Carolina
DIANA M. LIVERMAN, University of Arizona, Tucson, and
University of Oxford, UK
PAMELA A. MATSON, Stanford University, California
PETER H. RAVEN, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis
RICHARD SCHMALENSEE, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge
PHILIP R. SHARP, Resources for the Future, Washington, D.C.
PEGGY M. SHEPARD, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, New
York, New York
ROBERT H. SOCOLOW, Princeton University, New Jersey
SUSAN SOLOMON, National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, Boulder, Colorado
BJORN STIGSON, World Business Council for Sustainable
Development, Geneva, Switzerland
THOMAS J. WILBANKS, Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
Tennessee
PETER ZANDAN, Public Strategies, Inc., Austin, Texas
Asterisks (*) denote members who resigned during the course
of the study.
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