[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5278]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CLIMATE CHANGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot going on around here 
lately. We have been conducting investigations, holding hearings, and 
some of us have even tried and failed to fundamentally change the way 
we provide health care in this country.
  It has been easy to get distracted by the dozens of different 
headlines and breaking news stories we see each week. But no matter 
what else is going on here in Washington, one thing continues unabated: 
each day, the United States, like every other country on Earth, 
continues to release tons and tons of carbon dioxide into the 
atmosphere, and now we are starting to see the effects.
  Over the last couple of years, the U.S. has joined 20 other countries 
from around the world in growing its economy while reducing its annual 
emissions into the atmosphere. This is not a small feat, and decoupling 
emissions from growth is the first step toward the substantive action 
needed to address the growing climate crisis. But I find this concept 
of reducing emissions can sometimes be a little misleading.
  In the last few years, the U.S. has reduced the rate that it emits 
greenhouse gases. But even if we are doing it more slowly, we are still 
emitting harmful pollution into our air.
  Imagine, Mr. Speaker, standing at the edge of an empty swimming pool 
with a garden hose. For a while, water was spewing out of that hose at 
a torrent; and each year, the volume got greater and greater. Now, the 
water is still running, but we have begun to turn the speed down. 
However, even if we manage to slow the rate of water going in, the pool 
still has more water than when we started and is still filling up.
  Our atmosphere is that pool. For nearly 100 years, it has been 
filling up with greenhouse gases. And they don't just go away when the 
calendar flips. Reducing the annual emissions is vital, but we can't 
lose track of all the gases that have been accumulated year after year.
  If we are going to hit the international goal of limiting climate 
warming to 2 degrees Celsius, we need to start acting now. Yet, this 
august body has been behind the curve on this issue for years.
  Our colleagues seem content to ignore the climate crisis, to hold 
hearings with discredited, crank pseudoscientists bought and paid for 
by corporate interests, or to deny the value of scientific thinking 
altogether, an approach that is all too familiar given the post-
research, post-intelligence, post-truth mindset that we have seen from 
this administration. They have adopted a ``hear no evil, see no evil, 
speak no evil'' approach to climate change, hoping they can ignore it 
until it goes away. Sadly, that is not the way the world works.
  We can't unfill the pool by pretending there is no such thing as 
water. This form of denial has been evolving over time. First, we heard 
that there was no way that climate is changing at all.
  Now that the changes in the atmosphere are beyond doubt, we are 
starting to hear that climate is changing but there is nothing we can 
do about it. In addition to being flat out false, that type of thinking 
is unbecoming of a nation that put the first man on the Moon, pioneered 
instantaneous communication, and has led the world in the fight against 
countless deadly diseases.
  Last month, we heard the Administrator of the Environmental 
Protection Agency question the very fundamentals of atmospheric 
science, a particularly dismaying thing from the man charged with 
leading the fight against climate change. This type of willful 
scientific ignorance has serious consequences. It will cost lives.
  Children will be exposed to harmful, asthma-inducing pollution 
because we didn't act fast enough to clean our air. They will die 
because crops that could be counted on for generations will no longer 
grow. They will be forced from their homes because melting polar ice is 
driving sea levels higher and higher.
  We cannot deny these impacts. We cannot continue to hear no evil and 
see no evil when these changes are happening all around us, resulting 
in devastating consequences that affect every aspect of our life.
  Instead, the time has come to speak up and speak loudly like our 
lives and the world depend on it, as it truly does.

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