[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 63 (Wednesday, April 18, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2252-S2253]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Climate Change
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, when we think about climate change--
something we don't do much of in this body--we often think about rising
global temperatures and heat waves, and we think of changing weather
patterns, stronger storms, or sea level rise threatening coastal
communities. We actually see these effects unfold across the United
States and around the world as heat records fall, winters shrink, and
waters creep ever higher along our coastlines.
We also see the economic consequences of climate change. Just last
year, the United States suffered a record 16 separate billion-dollar
weather disasters, adding up to well over $300 billion in damages.
Acidifying seawater has devastated shellfish harvests in the Pacific
Northwest. Rhode Island fishermen struggle as their traditional catches
move farther north and offshore. Insurers and bond rating agencies warn
that coastal regions are becoming too risky to build homes and
infrastructure.
Among those various hazards, there is another hazard: the effects of
climate change on public health. The Rhode Island Department of Health
has produced this guide for Rhode Islanders to help them understand the
health risks they face from climate change and to better learn how to
protect themselves from what are often new risks.
Perhaps the most obvious effect of climate change on public health is
increased heat-related illness and mortality. This link has been well
studied across the country, often cross-referencing temperature records
and death certificates. Work has been done by a lot of places; one of
them is Rhode Island's own Brown University.
Here is the Rhode Island Health Department report. Over the last
century, Rhode Island's average temperature has already increased by
more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit, and temperatures are expected to keep
on climbing due to climate change. Currently, Rhode Island sees on
average only about 10 days of 90-plus degree temperatures. Starting in
the next decade and running through the end of the century, the number
of days that the heat index will hit at least 90 degrees will rise to
between 13 and 44 days each summer. That is as much as 6 weeks in a
summer of heat in the nineties. That increase of hot summer days caused
by climate change puts many Rhode Islanders at risk, particularly those
who don't have air conditioning, either because they can't afford it or
because, right now, they don't need it. Heat waves are the leading
cause of extreme weather-related deaths in the United States, causing
an average of more than 600 deaths a year and thousands more
hospitalizations. Rhode Island, even though we are in the Northeast, is
not spared, and with climate change, it will only get worse.
Hot days pose a health risk to many different groups of people, as
shown here in Rhode Island's Department of Health report. Children, the
elderly, people who work outdoors, athletes, the disabled, pregnant
women, and folks who are on medications that reduce their bodies'
ability to dissipate heat are just some of the many people who are
especially at risk from heat waves. Because of the nature of their
responsibilities, emergency responders are particularly vulnerable.
When I visited Phoenix, AZ, I was told by their emergency response
leadership that they are having to restructure the duty schedules to
protect firefighters from being overcome, if they are out fighting
fires or responding to an emergency in daytime temperatures, because
they overheat. So you have to rotate them through much faster and add
cooling and hydration teams to support the fire crews as they speed
through their heightened rotations.
An ER doc from the Lifespan health system in Rhode Island visited my
office and told another story about an older woman who was treated for
a heat-related illness. She had just been sitting outside on a hot day,
in the Sun, enjoying herself. Perhaps she didn't feel the need to
hydrate herself. Perhaps some routine medication that she was on made
her more susceptible, but she was not aware of how quickly she was
overheating. When her husband returned home from work, he found her
lethargic and unable to move, with a body temperature of 107 degrees.
Hotter temperatures are bad on their own because of the effects they
have on people's bodies and because of the added deaths that they
cause, but they also work to create more ozone. Ozone is dangerous.
Ozone is dangerous for children. It is dangerous for the elderly. It is
dangerous for anyone with asthma or other breathing-related
difficulties. Again, from Rhode Island's health report, Rhode Island's
asthma rates are 33 percent higher than national averages for adults
and 40 percent higher for children. So asthma is pretty serious for us,
and people go to the hospital for this.
This is not just an inconvenience. In Rhode Island, we have heard air
quality alerts on morning drive-time radio. You are going in to work
and listening to the radio, and the announcer is saying, ``Kids,
seniors, people with breathing difficulties, you need to stay indoors
today.'' It is a sunny, perfect summer day, it seems. Ozone is not
visible, but because it is there and because of what it does to lungs
and to asthma, people in Rhode Island are told they can't go outdoors
that day. That kind of bad day alert, because it is for ozone, is going
to become more frequent as climate change warms up our climate and
produces more ozone.
It works this way. Our air in Rhode Island is polluted, primarily, by
midwestern powerplants. Out in the Midwest, they run the emissions up
supertall smokestacks. The pollution is then injected up into the
atmosphere and is carried away on prevailing winds. Guess what. It
bakes in the Sun,
[[Page S2253]]
turns to ozone, and it lands on us--not them, us. It is their
pollution, our lungs.
Thanks a bunch, guys.
Our air is also worsened by smoke from forest fires, even from as far
away as Canada, and the warming climate, as the Presiding Officer
knows, has created an extraordinary fire situation out West. Changing
precipitation patterns have produced more fires, and that means more
smoke in downwind States, and we are a downwind State.
The result of all of this is that Rhode Island's air quality receives
only a C from the American Lung Association. This poor grade is largely
because of ozone, most of which comes from out of State. We end up with
grade C air because of, primarily, out-of-State pollutants. This is not
just some minor inconvenience. Across the country, air pollution--much
of it made worse by climate change--is responsible for a staggering
200,000 premature deaths each year.
Pollen is another problem. Shifting seasons produce a longer pollen
season. Increased pollen levels, particularly with increased air
pollution, kick in allergies, which takes us into another risk. The
warmth of earlier springs and later falls also means that tick and
mosquito season in Rhode Island lasts far longer than it used to, and
that moves us to yet more health risks and diseases.
Rhode Island already has the fourth highest rate of Lyme disease in
the country. We have over 900 cases a year, and as temperatures
increase, we are likely to see the number of ticks in Rhode Island
increase, which would be expected to lead to even more cases of Lyme
disease. In States not too far north of us, the tick situation has
gotten so out of control that they are actually seeing moose calves die
off because they are so swarmed with ticks. I am sorry. I know this is
a little bit gross, but calves are dying when their bodies can't
support both their own metabolism and feeding the ticks that have
crawled up onto them in the thousands--in some cases, over 10,000
ticks. So we have to be concerned about this not just for ourselves but
for the wildlife around us.
Warmer temperatures also provide a longer breeding season for
mosquitoes. More downpours--yet another result of climate change--
result in more standing water, which is habitat for mosquito larvae.
Rhode Island has been up 76 percent in extreme downpours since 1950.
That is the largest increase in extreme precipitation events out of all
50 States. Of course, these little critters, the mosquitoes, carry the
West Nile virus, the Eastern equine encephalitis, and other illnesses
we didn't used to see in our State.
As if all of this were not bad enough, climate change is also
worsening another natural hazard that threatens public health--harmful
algae blooms. Algae naturally occur in lakes and oceans, but in certain
conditions, algae populations can explode. These blooms, they call
them--blooms of algae--can slime waterways and overwhelm ecosystems,
eating up nutrients, and they can deplete oxygen in the water and in
the oceans so completely that no other life can exist, so that other
creatures--fish--actually suffocate in the water. Algae are often,
therefore, the reason behind massive fish kills.
Some kinds of algae even produce toxins. People can become sick from
exposure to the contaminated, toxin-filled water and even from the air
if you get enough surface turbulence and churning of waves that it
aerates the toxins, and then it is inhaled. The toxins can get into our
food chain. They end up in shellfish and seafood on our dinner plates.
Depending on which toxin it is, the consequences for people, for pets,
and for wildlife can range from rashes and skin irritation, to pretty
severe neurological and gastrointestinal symptoms, to respiratory
arrest, and even death.
In 2016, New England was hit for the first time by a Pseudo-nitzschia
bloom--a kind of algae that produces a toxin, domoic acid, which caused
large swaths of Narragansett Bay to be closed to shellfishing. The
Providence Journal reported: ``In the more than 15 years officials have
tested for [domoic acid], Rhode Island . . . never had a bloom reaching
dangerous levels.'' In March of 2017, Rhode Island was forced, once
again, to institute emergency shellfish closures in Narragansett Bay--
stuff that did not used to happen before this--when algae produced
dangerous levels of domoic acid.
This may seem funny to my western colleagues, but people make their
living doing this stuff, so it is not funny to us in Rhode Island when
climate change is warming our oceans and creating these risks. Harmful
algae blooms have also been advised for ponds in Portsmouth, Cranston,
Greenville, and Tiverton.
In all of these ways--from heat-related illnesses, to respiratory
disease, to allergies, to tick- and mosquito-borne illnesses, to toxic
algae blooms--climate change has serious and wide-ranging effects on
public health. Rhode Island's Department of Health has done an
excellent service with this report--in helping Rhode Islanders learn
how to be aware and to protect themselves. It was supported, by the
way, by a grant from the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, in its Climate and Health Program. It was a small $10
million program, but it helped this project's report come to fruition
in Rhode Island. We appreciate it. It is a wise investment to help
prepare Americans for unfamiliar diseases that are being driven into
our neighborhoods by a change in climate.
As I conclude, I know that there are colleagues here who do not care
to listen to environmental groups, but they might want to listen to the
American Medical Association. The American Medical Association writes:
``Scientific surveys have shown clear evidence that our patients are
facing adverse health effects associated with climate change.''
Colleagues might listen to the American Lung Association, which
writes: ``Climate change seriously threatens our wellness--especially
our lung health.''
Perhaps colleagues might consider the opinion of the American Academy
of Pediatrics, which writes: ``Tackling climate change could be the
greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century.'' They write
that because here is the problem: ``Climate change poses threats to
human health, safety, and security, and children are at particularly
high risk.''
We may disagree about a lot around here, but when the American
Academy of Pediatrics is telling us that climate change poses serious
threats to human health, safety, and security and that children are at
particularly high risk, it is a very callous thing to pay no attention.
It is time to wake up. Our constituents' health and well-being actually
does hang in the balance, and this Rhode Island report shows it for our
State at least.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Tillis). The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for
his leadership and his outspokenness--how he has shown the importance
of the Senate actually doing its job on both climate change and
campaign finance and how much they are related to each other because of
the stranglehold the oil industry has on the Republican Party and the
hundreds of millions of dollars they spend. Senator Whitehouse has been
on this floor well over 100 times to talk about that. The country
certainly listens, and the country is, certainly, in the same place he
is and a lot of us are. Unfortunately, the special interest groups in
this town continue to control this Senate.