[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9133]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, the sciences and the facts don't lie. 
Congress has stood here for too long debating the truth about climate 
change. What is there to debate?
  More than 12,000 peer-reviewed scientific studies are in agreement. 
Climate change is real, and humans are significantly to blame. For 
those of you keeping track at home, there are zero peer-reviewed 
scientific studies that state the opposite.
  As we continue to harm the environment, we are ultimately hurting 
ourselves and human health. In the movie ``Birdman,'' it was written: 
``A thing is a thing, not what is said of that thing.''
  I feel the need to remind my colleagues that climate change is a real 
thing, regardless of what is said of that climate change thing; just 
because you don't want to believe it doesn't make climate change any 
less real. It is rapidly becoming a threatening crisis in public 
health. As the planet warms, sea levels rise and lead to increased 
floods. Droughts are more frequent and intense. Heat waves and 
hurricanes are more severe.
  Climate change makes existing diseases and conditions worse, but it 
also helps introduce new pests and pathogens into communities. 
Respiratory allergies and diseases are becoming more prevalent because 
of increased pollen, molds, air pollution, and dust. Higher 
concentrations of these particles in the air cause severe breathing 
problems and lead to heart disease, asthma attacks, inflammation, and 
lung cancer.
  Every year, 220,000 people learn they have lung cancer, and 160,000 
people die from lung cancer. That is twice the population size of my 
own neighborhood, Lakeview.
  Children who are especially vulnerable to these pollutants are harmed 
by the air they breath. Their lungs shouldn't be at risk when they go 
outside to play or walk to school, but asthma is the third leading 
cause of hospitalization among children under the age of 15.
  Nearly half of this Nation--our Nation--lives in areas with dangerous 
levels of pollution, 44 percent. My own district is included. Chicago 
earned itself an F in an air quality study from the American Lung 
Association.
  According to the same study, the Windy City is ranked in the bottom 5 
percent for most polluted city in terms of short-term particle 
pollution in the Nation, and it is only getting worse. Not only is our 
air quality dangerous, but our most essential resource, which we all 
depend on, our water, is at risk due to climate change.
  Water is vital to survival. As temperatures rise, people and animals 
need more water to maintain their health and thrive. Increases in water 
temperature, precipitation frequency and severity, and changes in 
coastal ecosystem health could increase the incidence of water 
contamination. Currently, more than 840,000 people die each year from 
water-related diseases. That is more than the entire city of San 
Francisco.
  Climate change is expected to produce more frequent and severe 
extreme precipitation events worldwide. Over the past 50 years, the 
amount of rain falling during the most intense 1 percent of our storms 
increased by 20 percent. These turbulent changes breed outbreaks of 
waterborne diseases. In fact, in the United States, from 1948 to 1994, 
heavy rainfall correlated with more than half of the outbreaks of 
waterborne disease.
  Water sustains our economy by producing energy at power plants, 
raising livestock, and growing food crops. Many water supply sources 
are already overallocated, and people are suffering from degraded water 
quality.
  Given our current trajectory within the Western U.S. in severe 
drought, the competition for water resources will only increase, 
leading to great impacts on human health.
  Albert Einstein once said: ``We can't solve today's problems by using 
the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.'' We need to 
adjust how we think about climate change. We need to understand that 
severe weather, pollution, and changes in our water are not only 
harmful to the planet, but harmful to the people who inhabit that 
planet.
  Climate change is a direct threat to humanity, and it is time we 
reexamine how we think about it, talk about it, and respond to this 
growing problem. The health of humans worldwide is at stake.

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