[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 157 (Wednesday, November 6, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7869-S7870]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I am here today for what is now the 49th straight
week in which the Senate has been in session to urge that we wake up to
the effects of carbon pollution on the Earth's oceans and climate, that
we sweep away the manufactured doubt that so often surrounds this issue
and get serious about the threat we face from climate change.
When I come to the floor, I often have a specialized subject. I talk
about the oceans and how they are affected by carbon pollution. I talk
about the economics around carbon pollution. I talk about the faith
community's interest in carbon pollution. Today I want to talk about
the role of the media in all of this.
In America, we count on the press to report faithfully and accurately
our changing world and to awaken the public to apparent mounting
threats. Our Constitution gives the press special vital rights so that
they can perform this special vital role. But what happens when the
press fails in this role? What happens when the press stops being
independent, when it becomes the bedfellow of special interests? The
Latin phrase ``Quis custodiet ipsos custodes''--who will watch the
watchmen themselves--then becomes the question. The press is supposed
to scrutinize all of us. Who watches them when they fail at their
independent role?
I wish to speak about a very specific example--the editorial page of
one of our Nation's leading publications, the Wall Street Journal. The
Wall Street Journal is one of America's great newspapers, and there is
probably none better when it comes to news coverage and reporting. It
is a paragon in journalism until one turns to the editorial page and
then steps into a chasm of polluter sludge when the issue is harmful
industrial pollutants. When that is the issue, harmful industrial
pollutants, this editorial page will mislead its readers, will deny the
scientific consensus, and it will ignore its excellent news pages'
actual reporting, all to help the industry, all to help the campaign to
manufacture doubt and delay action.
As I said before, there is a denier's playbook around these issues.
We have seen the pattern repeat itself in the pages of the Wall Street
Journal on acid rain, on the ozone layer, and now, most pronouncedly,
on climate change. The pattern is a simple one: No. 1, deny the
science; No. 2, question the motives; and No. 3, exaggerate the costs.
Call it the polluting industry 1-2-3.
Let's start in the 1970s when scientists first warned that
chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were commonly used as refrigerants
and aerosol propellants, could break down the Earth's stratospheric
ozone layer, which would increase human exposure to ultraviolet rays
and cause cancer. As outlined in a report by Media Matters, this is
when the Wall Street Journal's editorial page embarked upon what would
become a persistent and familiar pattern.
For more than 25 years, the Wall Street Journal's editorial page
doggedly printed editorials devaluing science and attacking any
regulation of CFCs.
In January of 1976, an editorial proclaimed the connection between
CFCs and ozone depletion ``is only a theory and will remain only that
until further efforts are made to test its validity in the atmosphere
itself.''
In May of 1979, an editorial said that scientists ``still don't know
to what extent, if any, mankind's activities have altered the ozone
barrier or whether the possibly harmful effects of these activities
aren't offset by natural processes. . . . Thus, it now appears, all the
excitement over the threat to the ozone layer was founded on scanty
scientific evidence.''
In March 1984, we read on the editorial page that concerns about
ozone depletion were based on ``premature scientific evidence.''
Rather, it was written, ``new evidence shows that the ozone layer isn't
vanishing after all; it may even be increasing.''
In March 1989, an editorial called for more research on the
``questionable theory that CFCs cause depletion of the ozone layer''
and implored scientists to ``continue to study the sky until we know
enough to make a sound decision regarding the phasing out of our best
refrigerants.''
Again, deny the science.
Predictably, they also attacked the motives of reformers. A February
1992 editorial stated that ``it is simply not clear to us that real
science drives policy in this area.''
Finally, playbook 3, they have warned that action to slow ozone
depletion would be costly.
A March 1984 editorial claimed that banning CFCs would ``cost the
economy some $1.52 billion in forgone profits and product-change
expenses'' as well as 8,700 jobs.
An August 1990 editorial warned that banning CFCs would lead to a
``dramatic increase in air-conditioning and refrigeration costs.'' It
added that ``the likely substitute for the most popular banned
refrigerant costs 30 times as much and will itself be banned by the
year 2015. The economy will have to shoulder at least $10 to $15
billion a year in added refrigeration costs by the year 2000.''
A February 1992 editorial warned that accelerating the phase-out of
CFCs ``almost surely will translate into big price increases on many
consumer products.''
Despite the protests of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, we
actually listened in America to the science, and we took action. We
protected the ozone layer, we protected the public health, and the
economy prospered.
What about all those costs that they claimed? Looking back, we can
see that action to slow ozone depletion in fact saved money. According
to the EPA's 1999 progress report on the Clean Air Act, ``every dollar
invested in ozone protection provides $20 of societal health benefits
in the United States''--$1 spent, $20 saved. The Journal's response?
Silence. They just stopped talking about it.
Next we will go to acid rain. In the late 1970s scientists began
reporting that acid rain was falling on most of our Northeastern United
States. Guess what. Again, at the Wall Street Journal editorial page,
out came the playbook.
First, they questioned the science behind the problem. A May 1980
editorial questioned the link between increased burning of coal and
acid rain, concluding that existing ``data are not conclusive and more
studies are needed.''
In September 1982 the editors told us that ``scientific study, as
opposed to political rhetoric, points more and more toward the theory
that nature, not industry, is the primary source of acid rain.'' Nature
is the primary source of acid rain.
A September 1985 Journal editorial claimed that ``the scientific case
for acid rain is dying.''
In June 1989 the editorial page argued that we needed to wait--it is
always needing to wait--for science to understand, for example, to what
extent acid rain is manmade before enacting regulations. During that
same period the Wall Street Journal's editorial page also smeared the
motive, declaring that the effort to address acid rain was driven by
politics, not science.
Consistent with No. 2 in the playbook, in July 1987 the editorial
page wrote: ``As the acid-rain story continues to develop, it's
becoming increasingly apparent that politics, not nature, is the
primary force driving the theory's biggest boosters.''
Wall Street Journal editors also consistently opposed plans to
address acid rain because of cost concerns--No. 3 in the playbook.
A June 1982 editorial warned of the ``immense cost of controlling
sulfur emissions.''
A January 1984 editorial claimed a regulatory program for acid rain
would cost ``upwards of $100 billion.''
These claims were made even as the evidence mounted against their
position, even as President Reagan's own scientific panel said that
inaction would risk ``irreversible damage.'' Of course, the cost
equation of the Wall Street Journal editorial page was always totally
one-sided--always the cost to clean up the pollution; never the cost of
the harm the pollution caused.
[[Page S7870]]
That is the industry playbook, faithfully spouted through the
editorial page of the Wall Street Journal--No. 1, deny the science; No.
2, question the motives; and No. 3, exaggerate the costs.
But we made undeniable progress against acid rain despite the efforts
of the editorial page. Guess what. The Journal's editorial page
suddenly reversed its tune. A July 2001 editorial called the cap-and-
trade program for sulfur dioxide ``fabulously successful,'' noting that
the program ``saves about $700 million annually compared with the cost
of traditional regulation and has been reducing emissions by four
million tons annually.'' On this occasion, when its effort had failed,
the Journal changed its tune, but until then it was still the industry
playbook--No. 1, deny the science; No. 2, question the motives; and No.
3, exaggerate the costs.
With carbon pollution running up to 400 parts per million for the
first time in human history, the Journal is using the same old polluter
playbook against climate change. The Journal has persistently published
editorials against taking action to prevent manmade climate change. As
usual, they question the science.
In June 1993 the editors wrote that there is ``growing evidence that
global warming just isn't happening.''
In September 1999 the page reported that ``serious scientists'' call
global warming ``one of the greatest hoaxes of all time.''
In June 2005 the page asserted that the link between fossil fuels and
global warming had ``become even more doubtful.'' This is June 2005,
and the Wall Street Journal editorial page is questioning whether there
is a link between fossil fuels and global warming.
A December 2011 editorial declared that the global warming debate
requires ``more definitive evidence.''
As usual--back to the industry playbook--the motives of the
scientists were smeared.
A December 2009 editorial claimed that leading climate scientists
were suspect because they ``have been on the receiving end of climate
change-related funding, so all of them must believe in the reality (and
catastrophic imminence) of global warming just as a priest must believe
in the existence of God.''
As usual, we heard that tackling climate change, tackling carbon
pollution, would cost us a lot of money. In August 2009, the editorial
page warned ``that a high CO2 tax would reduce world GDP a
staggering 12.9 percent in 2100--the equivalent of $40 trillion a
year.''
Just last month, October 2013, the editorial board of the Wall Street
Journal warned that in the face of climate change, ``interventions make
the world poorer than it would otherwise be.''
That same October 2013 editorial actually completed the full polluter
playbook trifecta by also decrying the ``political actors'' seeking to
gain economic control and by questioning the science, saying ``global
surface temperatures have remained essentially flat.''
They covered them all in just the one editorial. If only the
editorial page writers at the Wall Street Journal would turn the page
to the actual news their own paper reports on climate change.
A March 2013 article reported:
New research suggests average global temperatures were
higher in the past decade than over most of the previous
11,300 years, a finding that offers a long-term context for
assessing modern-day climate change.
A piece from the Wall Street Journal news in August 2013 revealed:
Average global temperatures in 2012 were roughly in line
with those of the past decade or so, but the year still
ranked among the 10 warmest on record as melting Arctic ice
and warming oceans continued to boost sea levels.
That takes me to a particular fact about what carbon pollution is
doing, and that is our oceans are taking the brunt of the harm from
carbon pollution, and it is time to stop looking the other way. But the
Wall Street Journal editorial page doesn't often address the effects of
carbon pollution on oceans, perhaps because the changes taking place in
our oceans are not a matter where the complexity of computer modeling
leaves room for phony doubt to be insinuated.
The oceans' recent changes from our carbon pollution aren't
projections and they aren't models, they are measurements--simple,
unyielding measurements. We measure sea level rise with a ruler. It is
not complicated. We measure ocean temperature with a thermometer. We
measure ocean acidification on the pH scale. They do not talk about
that much in the Wall Street Journal editorial pages. There is no room
for phony doubt. So they look elsewhere.
We have the right to expect independent and honest media to teach the
American public about the threats facing our oceans and our
environment. What a difference good reporting can make. Exemplary and
compelling storytelling can and does influence our national
conversation and inspire change. Reporters fail when they give false
equivalency to arguments on each side of the political spectrum, even
though they are not really equivalent. Editors fail when they look at
the science, look at the measurements, look at the real threats posed
to our world and then fail to tell us the unvarnished truth.
The story of climate change needs to be told. Our oceans need a
voice. It seems the big polluters already have one.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.
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