Authorizing the Limited and Specified Use of the United States Armed Forces Against Syria

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, we are back from the August recess, and I am here now for the 42nd time to try to awaken this body to the threat of climate change. Today I have come to talk about some of what went on during the recess while we were away in my home State of Rhode Island and around the globe.

Here is some of what happened in Rhode Island.

On August 14, Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, joined me in Rhode Island to deliver a clear message. As she said: ``Climate change poses a very real threat to public health, both now and in the future.''

Warmer temperatures in the Northeast mean harmful ozone can form very quickly. That leads to the bad air days we hear about on the news, when children with asthma and other vulnerable citizens are urged to stay indoors, often on what appear to be beautiful, sunny, summer days. Nancy Sutley and I heard from Nick Friend, a 15-year-old from East Providence, and Kenyatta Richards, an 8-year-old from Warwick, about the six Rhode Island bad air days we have had already this year that threatened Nick's and Kenyatta's health, and thousands more children.

In Narragansett, a lovely Rhode Island beach town, I visited two sites that sustained significant damage during Hurricane Sandy to see how that town is using recovery aid to repair roads and public housing. People in Narragansett realize rebuilding is not enough; that we need to start adapting for future storms.

The oceans are warming, undeniably, and as they warm they expand. So sea levels rise, leading to more erosion and flooding. Tide gauges in Newport show an average sea level increase of nearly 10 inches since 1930. So storm surges such as the damaging surge last year from Hurricane Sandy will batter our shores further inland, and we have to adapt to that.

In Westerly, RI, town officials and the University of Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Center held an informational meeting about the effects of sea level rise on the town's coastal wetlands, planning for 1, 3, and 5 feet of coastal sea level rise, so Westerly can create a communitywide adaptation plan.

Cranston, RI, was hit hard by the floods of 2010. In August, during this recess, demolition crews began tearing down homes in a neighborhood near the Pawtuxet River to buffer the surrounding homes to protect against future flooding. Cranston also announced a series of climate change workshops to increase awareness about the threats facing city residents and to help them plan ahead. So that is some of what happened in Rhode Island.

Nationally, in August the Rim Fire burned in California near Yosemite National Park, the third largest wildfire on record in California. No one can say climate change caused this fire. Wildfires have been happening forever. But hotter, drier years make for worse wildfire seasons. Spring and summer temperatures are edging up, snow is melting earlier, wildfire season is lengthening, and the intensity of the wildfire season is increasing, as State and Federal fire and forest managers forewarned our bicameral task force in a hearing just before the recess.

During August, nearly all of New Mexico experienced drought, with the majority of that State in severe, extreme or exceptional drought. In late August, the Bureau of Reclamation announced the first reduction of outflows from Lake Powell since the reservoir was filled in the early 1960s. Tens of millions of people who rely on the Colorado River for water will be affected.

Reports are that a late August heat wave in the Midwest caused school closures in Minnesota, and students were released early from schools in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Again, it is the loaded dice phenomenon. We can't assign specific blame for this heat wave to climate change, but on a planet with hotter summers, we can expect worse and more frequent heat waves. So that is nationally.

Globally, NOAA announced that July 2013 was the sixth warmest July on record.

I was traveling in Asia during the recess with Senator John McCain immediately following record-setting heat. In mid-August temperatures passed 105 degrees Fahrenheit in Shanghai, China, the hottest temperature measured in the city since records began to be kept about 140 years ago. The temperature in Shimanto, Japan, hit 105 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest ever recorded in that Nation.

South Korea's President Park talked with us about climate change and its importance in Northeast Asia. While we were there in South Korea, the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy had warned of power shortages due to high temperatures, and we met with public officials in rooms with air-conditioners shut off to save power.

Senator McCain and I heard from China's leading climate official, Vice Chairman Xie, about China's plan to invest almost $475 billion on clean energy and emissions-reducing projects through 2015--nearly $500 billion between now and 2015 and about seven regional cap-and-trade programs that will eventually include other large cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. For my colleagues who say China must act first on climate change: They are acting, and we should not look to them for an excuse to delay action here at home.

Indeed, a report recently by the Pew Charitable Trusts described China as--let me quote this--China: ``The epicenter of clean energy finance, attracting $65.1 billion in investment ..... it garnered 25 percent of all solar energy investment ..... 37 percent of all wind energy investment ..... and 47 percent of the investment in the `other renewable energy category.' ''

That is what the Pew Report said about China.

The report compared that to the ``disappointing U.S. performance in the worldwide race for clean energy jobs, manufacturing, and market share.'' That is not a race we want to lose. Yet we are exhibiting disappointing performance against China.

August was also a month for the usual climate denial. One of our Senate colleagues reportedly self-declared that he was a global warming denier and said he believes evidence points to the Earth entering a mini ice age.

One California Representative told constituents: ``Just so you know, global warming is a total fraud.''

A conservative Representative from Iowa told his constituents:

[Climate change] is not science. It's more of a religion than science.

A Representative from Florida said: ``Our climate will continue to change because of the way God formed the Earth.''

August even brought a climate denier opinion piece to my home State ``Providence Journal:'' ``Climate science is in turmoil,'' the piece said, ``because global surface temperatures have been flat for 16 years.''

Rhode Island's PolitiFact unit quickly determined that this claim ``cherry-picked numbers and leaves out important details that would give a very different impression.''

In truth, there have been steps in the upward march of global surface temperature before. My skeptical colleagues should read about these steps and what may cause them in mainstream news outlets, which explain that while these pauses do happen, they have not and do not herald the end of climate change. Setting aside surface temperature for a moment, we continue to see warming, rising, and acidifying oceans.

The recess brought the latest issue, for instance, of ``National Geographic,'' whose cover story is ``Rising Seas.'' Let me read two excerpts:

A profoundly altered planet is what our fossil-fuel-driven civilization is creating, a planet where Sandy-scale flooding will become more common and more destructive for the world's coastal cities. By releasing carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, we have warmed the Earth by more than a full degree Fahrenheit over the past century and raised sea level by about eight inches. Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels tomorrow, the existing greenhouse gases would continue to warm the Earth for centuries. We have irreversibly committed future generations to a hotter world and rising seas.

Here, focusing on a specific location:

Among the most vulnerable cities is Miami. I cannot envision southeastern Florida having many people at the end of this century, says Hal Wanless, chairman of the department of geological sciences at the University of Miami. We're sitting in his basement office, looking at maps of Florida on his computer. At each click of the mouse, the years pass, the ocean rises, and the peninsula shrinks. Freshwater wetlands and mangrove swamps collapse--a death spiral that has already started on the southern tip of the peninsula. With seas four feet higher than they are today--a distinct possibility by 2100--about two-thirds of southeastern Florida is inundated. The Florida Keys have almost vanished. Miami is an island.

That is from that extremist publication National Geographic.

August also brought news that the IPCC will announce that it is now more certain than ever that human activity is the main cause of recent climate change. Let me be very clear about this: There is a broad and strong scientific consensus that climate change is ongoing and that human actions are a cause. It is a consensus of a breadth and strength that it is disgraceful and stupid for us to ignore it. That consensus should come as no surprise because the science behind it--behind the proposition that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere warms the Earth--dates back to the Civil War. It ain't news. We have known it for more than a century. Even the contrarian scientists brought in by the deniers to testify in Congress agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that warms the Earth.

The science is credible. The danger is credible. Now it is about time for Congress to become credible. It is time to wake up. It is time to do our duty here in Congress to our country and to our fellow man. It is time for us to get serious and protect Americans from the looming harms of climate change.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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