MSNBC "The Ed Show"- Transcript: Climate Change

Interview

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DYSON: One Senator is trying to wake his colleagues up, no matter how long
it takes. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is led the chart on climate
intervention since 2012, when it began his "Time to Wake Up" series.

Today will mark his 100 floor speech.

Joining me now is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. We`re
catching him just before he sets off the marked his 100th speech. Thanks
for joining us, Senator, here today.

SEN SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, (D) RHODE ISLAND: Thank you Michael. Good to be
with you.

DYSON: What is your response to this news about the mammoth ice shelf
collapsed?

WHITEHOUSE: It`s just yet another signal that the earth is sending us
whether you go to the Tide Gauge and Naval Station Newport, or go out to
the forests that have been desamidated by pine beetles in Idaho, in
Montana, or you go to the droughts in Arizona in California. You can go
virtually every place in the country, you see these changes beginning to
happen.

This big ice move is significant because it may accelerate the face of land
base ice moving into the ocean which will raise sea levels even more
rapidly.

DYSON: So, Senator, did you imagine when you began your series that your
"wake up" series would go on this long, 100 speeches now?

WHITEHOUSE: Well, with a pretty dark time when we started that, there were
-- it`s really not a lot action of climate, not a lot of talk about climate
change or either. So yeah, I figured out it`s going to be at this awhile.

DYSON: Well, has the conversation change since you started these series.
Do you think you have an ally higher up so to speak and do you think you
have more allies among your fellow Senators?

WHITEHOUSE: Yeah. I think I have a big ally higher up and the President
Obama, the White House is completely revived on this issue, the work that
they were doing internationally, the work that they are doing on the power
plant rule has been really significant and really made a big difference.
What I`m hearing what`s interesting is that, a lot of my colleagues, my
Republican colleagues in the senate are starting to say, "Hey, Sheldon, I
got to get right on this issue or, you know, our party has to get right on
this issue. We can`t keep doing this denial non-sense or even our country
has to lead. We can`t be drag back by the fossil fuel industry".

None of them want to say it publicly because the fossil fuel industry has
some really big political artillery. Thanks to Citizens United and they`ve
made very clear that they`re going to punish anybody who crosses them. But
the pressure is building among Republican Senators for a jailbreak out from
the control the fossil fuel industry on this issue and when it happens, it
will happen very fast I think.

DYSON: Well, here`s one notable resistor. What`s your response to Senator
Ted Cruz saying so-called global warming alarmists are flat-earthers?

WHITEHOUSE: It`s a wonderful technique of rhetoric were you accused your
opponent of being exactly who you are. So that the conversation looks like
a tie and people tune it out. But surely, every single major American
scientific society says that this is real. The scientists at NASA say that
this is real. Every single one of our military services says that this is
real. I`d say that flat-earth shoe is on the other foot.

DYSON: Right. . So do you think we need another natural disaster on the
scale of Katrina before this nation wakes up and understand that something
is a miss here and that we`ve got to take dramatic action?

WHITEHOUSE: I think there is enough going on locally in small places
around the country whether it`s ski resort owner who is worried about
whether there will be snow or a fisherman who is watching us touched move
away from where it always was or a farmer who is kicking at a parch field
and wants to know where the rain went.

A lot of people are starting to have a second look at this. And so I think
optimistically perhaps but I think that we`re going to see a big move on
the Republican Party between now and November of 2016.

I don`t think they can send a presidential candidate before a general
election electorate in November of 2016 who isn`t serious about climate
change. And once the presidential candidate has made that move then, I
think the party is going to follow and a lot of Senators will want to jump
at the point too.

DYSON: Wow. Well, from your mouth too, at least the voters ears if not
their eyes.

WHITEHOUSE: Yeah. I know.

DYSON: So with climate issues and Keystone pipeline debate play a big
role, do you think in the 2016 election because you see if they can`t stand
there, in honesty, without having addressed this issue, will those be the
instruments that they use?

WHITEHOUSE: Yeah. I think that they will. I`m not sure the Keystone
would still be a big deal then but climate I think will be. Because if
you`re a local voter and you`re seeing a real change in your state whether
it`s on the farms or along the coast, and you`re seeing a Representative or
a Senator who refuses to address at any kind of sensible way. And at the
same time, you`re seeing that Senator or Representative taking buckets of
money from the big fossil fuel industry and all their front organizations,
that`s a tough combination.

Now, you got somebody who is ignoring the folks at home because out of
state money and politics as usual. Even a climate change isn`t your
personal tough issue, you expect your Representatives to listen to your
state, and if they are not listening any longer because they`re tied up in
the fossil fuel denial machine, I think that`s a real danger for
Republicans who haven`t gotten right by 2016.

DYSON: All right. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you so much, my friend.

WHITEHOUSE: Thank you.

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