[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1141-S1142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Climate Change

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I come to again raise an alarm about 
the massive carbon pollution that we are dumping into our natural world 
and to tell the stories of two ocean creatures that are suffering from 
that pollution. Now, we may mock or ignore these creatures--these 
lesser creatures so far down the food chain from us--but we are fools 
to ignore the message of what is happening to them.
  Matthew 25:41 admonishes, ``as you did it to one of the least of 
these . . . you did it to me.'' So we ought not mock and ignore these 
lesser species because they also have a lesson for us, a warning. If we 
keep up what we are doing to them, it will soon enough be we who 
suffer. As Pope Francis warned: Slap Mother Nature, and she will slap 
you back.
  Let's start, before we get to the two species, with an overview.
  First, it is not just these two species. Science writer Elizabeth 
Kolbert has warned that we have entered a sixth great extinction--the 
first and only great extinction in humans' time on the planet--and that 
this great extinction is driven by manmade pollution and climate 
change. Scientists from around the globe have just issued one of the 
most comprehensive reports ever on Earth's biodiversity, and the head 
of that panel, Sir Robert Watson, summarized its findings this way.
  I quote him here:

       The overwhelming evidence . . . presents an ominous 
     picture. The health of ecosystems on which we and all other 
     species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We 
     are eroding the very foundations of our economies, 
     livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life 
     worldwide.

  The legendary David Attenborough warns that we face what he calls 
``irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our 
societies.''
  He says: ``It may sound frightening, but the scientific evidence is 
that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we 
could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of 
our societies.''
  In all of this, we need to remember our oceans. Oceans are warming 
and acidifying and literally suffocating ocean species as oxygen dead 
zones expand. Earth's oceans warm at the rate of multiple Hiroshima 
explosions' worth of heat per second--per second. They acidify at the 
fastest rate in at least 50 million years. They are also fouled with 
our plastic garbage and polluted by runoff from farming and stormwater. 
Our oceans' warnings are loud and clear and measurable. They are 
chronicled by fishermen and sailors and measured with thermometers, 
tide gauges, and simple pH tests that measure acidification.
  It is this acidification that takes me to these two species. The 
oceans are absorbing around 30 percent of our excess carbon dioxide 
emissions, and they do that in a chemical interaction that takes up the 
CO2 but acidifies the seawater. Don't pretend there is any 
dispute about this. Acidification is a chemical phenomenon. You can 
demonstrate it in a middle school science lab. You can demonstrate it 
with your breath, an aquarium bubbler, a glass of water, and a pH 
strip. In fact, I have done so right at this desk.
  Here is the first species pictured--the tiny pteropod. It is an 
oceanic snail about the size of a small pea. It is known as the sea 
butterfly because it has adapted two butterflylike wings that can 
propel it around in the ocean.
  Acidifying waters make it harder for pteropods and a lot of other 
shelled creatures to grow their shells and develop from juveniles to 
adults. Researchers in the Pacific Northwest have reported what they 
called ``severe shell damage'' on more than half of the pteropods they 
collected from Central California to the Canadian border.
  These images show the pteropod's shell when the creature's underwater 
environment becomes more acidic--not good for pteropods. Maintaining 
their shells against that acidity requires energy--energy that would 
otherwise go into growth or reproduction. So acidification makes it 
harder for species, such as the pteropods and other shell creatures at 
the base of the oceanic food chain, to survive.
  Who cares? Who cares about the lowly, humble pteropod? Who cares 
about some stupid ocean snail? Well, for one, salmon do. Half the diet 
of some salmon species in the Pacific is pteropods. Salmon fisheries 
support coastal jobs and economies across our Pacific Northwest. 
Offshore fishing in the United States is a multibillion dollar industry 
connected to hundreds of thousands of livelihoods. If you care about 
our fisheries industry, you should care about the humble pteropod. An 
entire food chain stands on its tiny back, and we are in that food 
chain.
  Move up the food chain a little, and you find another creature facing 
peril from acidification--the Dungeness crab. You see this crustacean 
on ice in your local fish market. It is an important commercial catch 
along our west coast. In 2014, the last year the Pacific States Marine 
Fisheries Commission did a comprehensive report, the Dungeness catch 
was worth $170 million. It is Oregon's most valuable fishery, and it is 
important also for Washington State and for California, where annual 
landings run between $40 and $95 million. Up north, in 2017, Alaska's 
commercial landings of Dungeness crabs totaled more than 2.1 million 
pounds.
  Last month, marine scientists reported that acidified oceans are 
dissolving the delicate shells of Dungeness crab larvae. The acidic 
environment is not just damaging the shells but also damaging the 
larvae's mechanoreceptors, the hairlike sensory organs that crabs use 
to hear and feel and make their way around the sea. The damage to the 
crabs is bad news, but worse is that we are seeing it now. Scientists 
thought hardy Dungeness crabs wouldn't be affected by acidification for 
decades. Richard Feely, senior NOAA scientist and coauthor of the 
study, reports that these ``dissolution

[[Page S1142]]

impacts to the crab larvae . . . were not expected to occur until much 
later in this century.''
  The sentinel implications for the entire ecosystem are grave. If the 
Dungeness are feeling the effects of ocean acidification now, what 
other creatures are feeling those effects too? Another lead author of 
this study said: ``If the crabs are affected already, we really need to 
make sure we start to pay much more attention to various components of 
the food chain before it is too late.''
  These concerns about the Dungeness crab and its happening too soon 
echo what scientists actually said of early findings about the 
pteropod. Oceanographer William Peterson, who is the coauthor of an 
early study on the pteropod, said: ``We did not expect to see pteropods 
being affected to this extent in our coastal region for several 
decades.''
  So we are way ahead of schedule in terms of what scientists have 
predicted for ocean acidification outcomes for these foundational 
creatures in our ocean ecosystem. Together, the pteropod and 
the Dungeness crab send a common message, one echoed by a Rhode Island 
fishing boat captain who told me: ``Sheldon, things are getting weird 
out there.''

  And they are getting weird faster than expected. The rapid ocean 
acidification that we are measuring now and that we are causing now 
with further carbon pollution is nearly unprecedented in the geological 
record. Scientists look back to try to find historical analogs for what 
is happening. The closest historical analogs scientists can find for 
what they are seeing now in the oceans go back before humankind. There 
is no analog in human time. You have to go back before humans existed, 
back into the prehistoric record, back to the prehistoric great 
extinctions, back when marine species were wiped out and ocean 
ecosystems took millions of years to recover. That is the historical 
analog that best matches our current direction.
  In his encyclical ``Laudato Si,'' Pope Francis, who is a trained 
scientist himself, reflected on what he called ``the mysterious network 
of relations between things'' in life. In that mysterious network of 
relations between things, the pteropod and the crab larva give their 
lives to transmit food energy from the microscopic plants they eat, 
which would be of no use to us, up to the fish that consume the 
pteropod and larva--fish, which we, in turn, consume--all in that great 
mysterious network of relations between things.
  What is happening to these two species is more than just an event. It 
is a signal. It is a signal of a looming global ecological catastrophe. 
Lesser species, species that we may mock or ignore, can sometimes be 
sentinels for humans, like the legendary canaries taken down into coal 
mines. When the sentinels start to die, it is wise to pay attention.
  What happens when, in our arrogance and pride, we refuse to heed the 
warnings from creatures so humble as the pteropods or crab larvae? 
Well, remember why Jesus was so angry with the Pharisees. What was 
their sin? Their arrogance and their pride blinded them to the truth. 
The Senate, this supposedly greatest deliberative body, has blinded 
itself to the devastation fossil fuels are unleashing on our Earth's 
mysterious network. We careen recklessly into the next great 
extinction.
  Pope Francis says:

       Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give 
     glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their 
     message to us. We have no such right.

  Indeed, we have no such right.
  So I come here today to challenge us to see the damage we have done--
the damage we are doing now, today, to this mysterious network of life, 
this mysterious God-given network of life that supports us. I challenge 
us also to turn away from dark forces of corruption and greed--
specifically, the fossil fuel industry forces that have deliberately, 
on purpose, crippled our ability in Congress to stop their pollution.
  I close by challenging us to heed the message of the humble creatures 
sharing this planet with us--the least of us, who share God's creation. 
They suffer at our hands, and in their suffering they send us a 
message, a warning, that we would do well to hear.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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