[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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