[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 69 (Thursday, May 16, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H2660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, a few days ago, the world's atmosphere 
passed 400 million parts per million level of carbon, higher than 
anything we have seen in the atmosphere for over 3 million years. This 
puts in stark focus the climate crisis and the indifference we are 
seeing from congressional leadership on this problem.
  In the last 24 hours, all you needed to know about the state of play 
for climate science and dealing with global warming was in two articles 
in the newspaper. Yesterday, the business section of The New York Times 
by Eduardo Porter discussed how the reinsurance industry is entirely 
comfortable with the climate science, predicting more rapid extreme 
weather events and dire consequences.
  They in the insurance industry, after all, don't have the luxury of 
debating science when they must deal with facts on the ground. This is 
dollar and cents for a vast industry trying to help people cope with 
the consequences of natural disaster. As a result of the market 
discipline, they have had to embrace reality, accept it, and plan for 
it.
  It was poignant that Porter observed and probed their lack of 
engagement in government policies, at least in the United States, that 
would help minimize future damage. Remember, this is even as the 
scientists told us we have had the highest concentration of carbon for 
3 million years.
  In today's Washington Post, there is a front-page story about fish 
populations that aren't waiting for their habitat to make it impossible 
for them to live. Species all over the globe are moving. They are 
migrating to cooler climates. In a process that has been taking place 
for decades now, fish are sorting themselves out and leaving areas that 
no longer sustain their quality of life, their ability to reproduce, 
and to thrive. They have steadily been moving to areas where the 
effects of climate change are not so pronounced.
  Isn't it interesting that fish without fancy scientific 
instrumentation or computer analysis or, dare I say it, political focus 
groups have reacted to facts in the sea and move to where they can 
function, where they can live, where they can escape for the time 
being, at least, the impact of climate change?
  They are also escaping from the people who depend on these fish for 
their living in the previous habitat. But that is another story about 
the devastation that local communities are facing because of the 
climate change consequences.

                              {time}  1010

  Isn't it time that the political process starts responding to a 
problem that even fish can figure out?
  What is it going to take for people in this body to wake up to their 
responsibilities and act with the same insight as aquatic species that 
don't have graduate degrees in computers but, mercifully for them, 
don't have political blinders and ideological fervor, wasting huge 
amounts of time on pointless activities like debating whether to repeal 
ObamaCare for the 37th time?
  Hopefully, insurance companies and the people who depend on these 
aquatic creatures will lend an air of reality to the discussion of 
climate change that is almost nonexistent here on Capitol Hill, maybe 
reaching the point where it is no longer a debate because it's really 
past time for a debate.
  It is time for us to take action like our friends in the ocean. If 
Charlie the Tuna can figure it out, why can't the Republican leadership 
in Congress? Let's maybe spend a little time debating with the Safe 
Climate Caucus this existential crisis of climate change and global 
warming.

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