[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 160 (Wednesday, December 12, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7778-S7779]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, there are many signs of the 
fundamental, measurable changes we are causing in the Earth's climate, 
mainly through our large-scale emission of carbon dioxide from fossil 
fuels. These are irreversible changes, at least in the short run, so we 
should take them very seriously.
  Over the last 250 years, the global annual average concentration of 
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 280 parts per 
million to 390 parts per million. That is a 30-percent increase. We 
have recent direct measurements that the carbon dioxide concentration 
increased by 15 percent since 1980 when it was 339. In 1980 it was 339 
and now it is 390. That is just a dozen years in which the 
concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere has increased by more 
than 50 parts per million. Fifty parts per million is a big shift if 
one is not aware of the scales we are talking about here. For 8,000 
centuries--800,000 years--longer than homo sapiens have existed on the 
face of the Earth, we can measure that the carbon concentration in the 
atmosphere has fluctuated between 170 and 300 parts per million. A 
total range of 130 parts per million has been the total range for 8,000 
centuries. We are now outside of that range up to 390, and we have 
moved 50 points since 1980, in a number of decades. So the consequences 
are going to be profound, and perhaps no consequence of that carbon 
pollution will be as profound as the increasing acidification of the 
world's oceans.
  Science, of course, has known since the Civil War era, and most of us 
understand, that excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere creates a 
warmer atmosphere known as the greenhouse effect. There is nothing new 
about that. But not all of the carbon dioxide emitted by human 
activity--by our use of fossil fuels--stays in the atmosphere. Carbon 
dioxide is soluble in water and the oceans cover 70 percent of the 
Earth. Where the atmosphere is in contact with the oceans, a portion of 
the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dissolves into the oceans, reacts 
with the sea water to form carbonic acid and increases the overall 
acidity of the oceans.
  There is sometimes quarrel and debate about complex modeling of 
climate and atmospheric projections, but evidence of ocean 
acidification is simple to measure and understand. Indeed, even the 
small noisy chorus of climate change deniers and corporate polluters is 
noticeably quiet on the issue of ocean acidification because they 
simply cannot explain away the facts.
  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists gauge that 
over the past 200 years, hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide 
have been absorbed into the oceans. NASA, which is able to put, for 
instance, a man on the Moon and a Rover on Mars and has reasonably good 
scientists working there who can accomplish those achievements, reports 
that:

       The amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by the upper layer of 
     the oceans is increasing by about 2 billion tons per year.

  NOAA scientists say the oceans are taking up about 1 million tons of 
carbon dioxide per hour. So in more or less the time my remarks are 
concluded, the equivalent of more than the weight of the Washington 
Monument of carbon will have been dumped into our oceans. All of the 
extra carbon dioxide humans have pumped into the oceans has caused the 
global pH of the upper ocean water to change--a nearly 30-percent 
increase in the acidity of the oceans.
  As my colleagues can see, the curve is not only moving upward but is 
steepening. Where is it headed? By the end of this century, it is 
projected we will have a 160-percent rise in ocean acidity. As we can 
see, not only are the oceans becoming more acidic, but they are 
becoming more acidic at a very rapid pace. The rate of change in ocean 
acidity is already thought to be faster than at any time in the past 50 
million years.
  I talk, when I give this weekly speech from time to time, about the 
800,000 years our planet has had a carbon dioxide concentration between 
170 and 300 parts per million and how long a time period that is 
compared to say humankind having the mastery of fire, humankind having 
engaged in agriculture, humankind even existing as homo sapiens. It is 
longer than all of those things. But that is just measuring in the 
hundreds of thousands of years. We are talking about a rate of 
increased carbon concentration and ocean acidity climbing faster than 
at any time in the past 50 million years.
  What does that mean? Well, a paper published in the journal Science, 
which is a mainstream, noncrank publication, earlier this year 
concluded that the current rate of carbon dioxide emission could drive 
chemical changes in our oceans that are unparalleled in at least the 
last 300 million years. We are back into geologic time now since we saw 
that kind of an effect. The authors warn that we may be ``entering an 
unknown territory of marine ecosystem change.'' Well, when our range of 
review is in the hundreds of millions of years and the authors are 
talking about entering unknown territory, that is really saying 
something.

  Here is what Dr. Peter Brewer, the senior scientist at the Monterey 
Bay Aquarium Research Institute, has to say. Let me quote him:

       The outcome is very clear that we are in uncharted 
     territory in the entire span of Earth history. The primary 
     cause of this is simply the rate of CO2 change; we 
     are changing Earth far, far faster than any recorded geologic 
     shift ever.

  Repeat: ``We are changing Earth far, far faster than any recorded 
geologic shift ever.''
  What does this mean for marine life? Well, as the pH of sea water 
drops, so does the saturation of calcium carbonate, which is the 
compound found in the sea water that aquatic animals use for the 
construction of their shells and of their skeletons. Some sea creatures 
absorb calcium carbonate directly from the water; others ingest it as 
food and then through their bodies it works out to build their shells. 
At lower saturations of calcium carbonate, calcium carbonate is not as 
available to these species, and it becomes more difficult for them to 
make their shells; species such as oysters, crabs, lobsters, corals, 
and the plankton that comprises the very base of the oceanic food web. 
We have seen this happen in real life already with the disaster that 
befell the Pacific Northwest oyster hatcheries when acidic water came 
in and killed off all the juveniles that were being grown.
  Over 1 billion people on this planet rely on marine protein as their 
primary source of protein, and then, of course, there are the countless 
jobs that depend on fisheries, on tourism, on restaurants, boat 
building, maintenance, shipping, and the list goes on. The Presiding 
Officer is from Maryland, which is another ocean State. He is clearly 
aware of the importance of that ocean economy.
  As things get harder for the species to survive and thrive, sooner or 
later it will get harder for the economies they support. Let me give my 
colleagues a specific example: the tiny pteropod, a type of snail, 
which is about the size of a very small pea. It is also known as the 
sea butterfly because its foot has adapted into two butterfly-like 
wings which allows it to propel itself around in the ocean. These 
images show what can happen to the pteropod's shell when the creature's 
underwater environment is lacking in those compounds and becomes more 
acidic. That is not good for the pteropods.
  Another study compared pteropods incubated in sea water with today's 
pH to pteropods incubated in water with the acidity and chemical 
conditions projected for the year 2100. The study found a 28-percent 
decrease in shell growth. Maintaining their shells against that acidity 
requires energy--energy that would otherwise go into other biologic 
processes such as growth or reproduction. So increasing ocean acidity 
is an external stress that makes it harder for species such as the 
pteropod to survive.
  Who cares about the lowly pteropod? Well, salmon do. Forty-seven 
percent

[[Page S7779]]

of the diet of some salmon species in the Pacific is pteropods. The 
salmon fisheries that support coastal jobs and economies also care 
about the salmon. Ocean fishing in the United States overall is a 
multibillion-dollar industry connected to hundreds of thousands of 
livelihoods, and we should care about our fisheries industry, even if 
one doesn't care about the salmon or the lowly pteropod.
  These unprecedented changes in ocean acidity are not happening alone, 
unfortunately.
  These changes come along with dramatically changing ocean 
temperature, which is also driven by the same carbon pollution. Just 
recently, NOAA proposed listing 66 species of coral as endangered or 
threatened, citing climate change as the driver of those species' three 
key threats: disease, warmer seas, and greater ocean acidification. 
When you add to those three conditions the preexisting stressors, such 
as nutrient pollution and destructive fishing practices, well, 35 
percent of the world's reefs are classified as in a critical or 
threatened stage.
  Scientific projections indicate that coral reef ecosystems could be 
eliminated in 30 to 50 years. The young pages who are on the floor of 
the Senate listening to this speech may very well live into a time when 
coral reefs and the ecosystems surrounding them are extinct. The death 
and decline of coral reefs, which are the most diverse ecosystems on 
the planet, in turn wounds hundreds of other species that call the 
reefs home. When a reef ecosystem collapses and does not recover, it 
quickly becomes dominated by algae, and the rich mix of species 
developed over hundreds of millions of years that was once present 
there then disappears.
  Scientists think the coral reefs off the coast of Papua, New Guinea 
offer a window into future effects of ocean acidification because there 
are natural emissions of carbon dioxide which bubble up from the sea 
floor through the ocean and raise the concentration making the sea 
water more acidic. Researchers have found that many species, especially 
the more complex framework-building corals, which provide shelter to 
other organisms, do not thrive where the pH is lower.
  These are two photographs taken in the same reef. We see how rich and 
vibrant this reef looks away from the carbon dioxide. Here, near the 
carbon, where the acidification is higher, it is a shadow of the 
healthy reef. The human-driven acidification of the ocean is capable of 
causing--indeed is destined to cause if we do nothing--a serious 
imbalance in the ocean's complex ecology. The external stress of carbon 
pollution will result in a new equilibrium in ocean ecosystems.
  When we consider what this portends for our food security, for our 
planet's biodiversity and economically for ocean-based industries, we 
cannot afford to ignore these changes that are happening, that are 
measurable in our oceans.
  Unfortunately, ignoring it is exactly what we are doing by failing to 
curb carbon pollution. There are high stakes involved. Our oceans cover 
70 percent of the planet. We cannot change their chemistry without 
expecting profound consequences. It is time we realize we are, in fact, 
part of the very food chain being disrupted by the mounting 
acidification of the ocean.
  The disruption of international fishing due to climate change and 
acidification threatens to destabilize local and global economies and 
compromise a major basic food source. How much? How much are we willing 
to sacrifice for the luxury of letting corporate polluters foul our 
planet with unchecked CO2 emissions? Carbon pollution from 
fossil fuels is depleting the health of the oceans as well as affecting 
the atmosphere. Unless we take serious action to reverse course, the 
consequences may be dire. We are sleepwalking through history. I 
implore my colleagues to heed the clear and persistent warnings that 
nature is giving us: to acknowledge the responsibility presented to us 
in this moment and to respond appropriately before it is too late.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.

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