{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://web.archive.org/web/20131203183542/http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov:80/news/speeches/sen-whitehouses-50th-weekly-climate-change-speech", "Sen. Whitehouse's 50th Weekly Climate Change Speech", "2013-11-13", "2013", "2013-11", "Democrat", "House", "RI", "Sheldon Whitehouse", "W000802", "web.archive.org", null, null, "legacy", "As delivered on the Senate floor\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tWednesday, November 13, 2013\n            \n\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tMr. President, I am here today, for now the fiftieth time, to urge my colleagues to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and our oceans.\u00a0 Once a week.\u00a0 Fifty weeks.\u00a0 Every week.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Why do I do this?\u00a0\nWell, first, because it\u2019s real.\u00a0 It\u2019s very real. It\u2019s happening.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the change in average global surface temperature since 1970.\n[Show Global Surface Temperature Chart]\nIt\u2019s pretty hard to deny.\u00a0 Of course, if you are a denier, you will look at it and you will see from the same data that it stopped.\u00a0 Well, what the deniers who tell you that it stopped don\u2019t tell you is that, yeah, and it stopped five times earlier on the way up. \u00a0\n[Show Temperature Steps Chart]\nIn fact, you could say that climate change has stopped six times since the 1970s.\u00a0 And even went down.\u00a0 But it didn\u2019t stay stopped long.\n\u00a0[Show Temperature Trend Chart]\nLook at the linear trend for the whole data set\u2014from 1970 to 2013; no one can deny over this period that the earth is warming.\u00a0 This decade was warmer than the last, which was warmer than the one before that, which was warmer than the one before that.\u00a0\n[Show Temperature Record 1880-2012 Chart]\nLet\u2019s look at NASA\u2019s entire historical surface temperature record, going back to the nineteenth century.\u00a0 Listen to what University of California-Berkley physics professor Richard Muller has to say about the temperature record:\u00a0\n\u201cThe frequent rises and falls, virtually a stair-step pattern, are part of the historic record, and there is no expectation that they will stop, whatever their cause\u2026 [T]he land temperature record \u2026 is full of fits and starts that make the upward trend vanish for short periods.\u00a0 Regardless of whether we understand them, there is no reason to expect them to stop.\u201d And here you can see again these short steps in the upward march.\nOne reason we can\u2019t expect these upward steps to stop is that we know what\u2019s driving them.\u00a0 What\u2019s driving climate change is something even contrarian scientists accept:\u00a0 that is more carbon dioxide leads to more warming.\u00a0 Simple as that; a 150-year-old, established, basic principle of physics.\u00a0\n[Read from 1861 Volume of Philosophical Magazine; large text will be inserted on the page.]\nThis is the October 1861 edition of the London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science.\u00a0 It includes a manuscript by physicist John Tyndall, entitled \u201cRadiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours.\u201d\u00a0\nHe says: \u201c[T]o account for different amounts of heat being preserved to the earth at different times,\u201d Tyndall wrote, \u201ca slight change in [the atmosphere\u2019s] variable constituents would suffice for this.\u00a0 Such changes in fact may have produced all the mutations of climate which the researches of geologists reveal.\u201d\nThe \u201cvariable constituents\u201d to which Tyndall refers include carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor.\u00a0\nThat\u2019s from 1861.\u00a0 President Lincoln took office that year, and here we are today, having to explain on the floor of the United States Senate the physics of what carbon dioxide does in the atmosphere.\u00a0\nIt\u2019s not just the principle that\u2019s established.\u00a0 There are lots of measurements.\u00a0 The carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now exceeds 400 parts per million.\u00a0 For the last 800,000 years at least, 800,000 years, and perhaps actually millions of years, we have been in a range of 170 to 300 parts per million.\u00a0 \u00a0That\u2019s been the whole of human existence.\u00a0 Homo sapiens has been around for about 200,000 of those 800,000 years.\u00a0 And it\u2019s only now, it\u2019s only since the Industrial Revolution, that we\u2019ve broken out of that safe window that has protected us through that entire history of our species and now we\u2019ve broken to 400.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a measurement.\n[Show \u201cWhere is Global Warming\u201d chart]\nLook at the oceans.\u00a0 Oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat caused by greenhouse gases over the last fifty years.\u00a0 Absorbing all that heat makes the oceans rise.\u00a0\nOceans have absorbed about 30 percent of our carbon emissions, which would otherwise be in the atmosphere causing more warming.\u00a0 Absorbing that carbon makes the oceans more acidic.\u00a0\nAnd that\u2019s all stuff we measure. \u00a0At the Newport tide gauge, sea level is up almost ten inches since the 1930s, when we had our catastrophic \u201838 hurricane in Rhode Island.\u00a0 You measure that.\u00a0 It takes basically a ruler.\u00a0\nWe\u2019re about three to four degrees warmer in the winter in Narragansett Bay than we were fifty years ago when my wife\u2019s URI mentor was doing his doctoral thesis.\u00a0 Three to four degrees.\u00a0 You measure that.\u00a0 It takes a thermometer.\u00a0\nAnd the ocean is acidifying at the fastest rate recorded in 50 million years.\u00a0 You measure that with a litmus test, which anybody with an aquarium does.\u00a0\nIt\u2019s one thing to be against science; it\u2019s another to be the party against measurement.\u00a0\u00a0 So the polluters and front groups don\u2019t talk much about the oceans. \u00a0But that doesn\u2019t change the fact: this is real, and it is past denying.\nSo that takes me to the second reason I do this.\u00a0 And that it that it is plain, old-fashioned wrong when people lie and trick other people, particularly when people are going to be hurt by the lies.\u00a0 And it\u2019s worse when there\u2019s money behind the trickery\u2014when it\u2019s purposeful.\u00a0\nLies cannot go unanswered.\u00a0 And that is another reason that I speak.\nAnd there isn\u2019t just lying going on, there\u2019s a whole carefully built apparatus:\u00a0 phony-baloney organizations designed to look and sound like they\u2019re real; messages honed by public relations experts to sound like they\u2019re true; payroll scientists whom polluters can trot out when they need them; and the whole thing big and complicated enough you could be fooled into thinking it\u2019s not all the same beast.\u00a0 But it\u2019s like mythical Hydra:\u00a0 many heads, same beast.\u00a0\nOne day, folks are going to look back at this and those behind it are going to be disgraced for what they did, and it\u2019s going to be a scandal.\u00a0\nAnd that\u2019s the third reason I speak.\u00a0 We are all going to be judged very harshly, with all the dread power that history has to inflict on wrong.\u00a0 The polluters and their collaborators will be judged harshly.\u00a0 The Republican Party will be judged harshly for letting itself be led astray by them.\u00a0 But\u2014and here\u2019s where it really hurts\u2014the failure of American democracy this is causing will also be judged harshly, and that will stain the reputation of our great American experiment.\u00a0 We in this generation have been passed this precious experiment by generations before us that fought, and bled, and died to put it safely in our hands.\u00a0 And we do this.\u00a0 We foul it, by lying and denying, for a bunch of polluters.\u00a0 Some generation we\u2019re going to be.\u00a0\nIf you believe this world needs America, this matters.\u00a0 Because a world fouled and changed by carbon pollution, in ways we could foresee but denied, will not believe it has much of a need for what a lying and denying America has to offer. \u00a0This episode will darken the lamp that America holds up to the world.\nWe are a great country, but not when we\u2019re lying and denying what\u2019s real. \u00a0\u00a0The atmosphere is warming; ice is melting; seas are warming, rising, and acidifying.\u00a0 And it\u2019s time for the misleading fantasies to end.\u00a0\nMr. President, here\u2019s how we go forward.\u00a0 First, price carbon right.\u00a0 Make the big carbon polluters pay a fee to the American people, as I have proposed with Representatives Waxman and Blumenauer and Senator Schatz; a pollution fee to cover the cost of dumping their waste into our atmosphere and oceans\u2014a cost which they now happily push off onto the rest of us.\u00a0\nI know:\u00a0 at present, political conditions do not allow us to price carbon.\u00a0 So we must change those political conditions.\u00a0 And we can.\nRecently, President Obama changed the calculus for polluters:\u00a0 carbon pollution standards for new and existing power plants; no more unchecked carbon dumping.\u00a0 Fifty power plants emit one out of every eight tons of America\u2019s carbon dioxide emissions.\u00a0 These fifty dirtiest U.S. power plants emit more than Canada, emit more than Korea.\u00a0 When the big polluters see the costs of complying with those new standards coming down at them, they may take a second look at an economy-wide carbon fee.\u00a0 And here\u2019s a news flash\u2014when the polluters\u2019 calculus begins to change, the political calculus here in Congress will change too.\nNothing says we have to wait for the polluters to figure this out on their schedule.\u00a0 There are armies on our side.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just the environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club, or National Wildlife Federation.\u00a0\nIt\u2019s not just virtually every major scientific organization, like the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society.\u00a0\nWe have faith-based groups like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of the Churches of Christ, Interfaith Power and Light, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.\u00a0\nWe have fishing, wildlife, and outdoor groups, like Trout Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, and Ducks Unlimited.\u00a0 They\u2019re joined by major sports leagues, like the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League, as well as the American Lung Association, who prefer to see kids playing outside in clean, healthy air.\u00a0\nWe have the Joint Chiefs of Staff on our side, joined by NASA, the National Academies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, even the Government Accountability Office\u2014\u201cThe Congressional Watchdog.\u201d\u00a0 And by the way, about NASA:\u00a0 let\u2019s not forget, NASA scientists sent an SUV-sized rover to Mars, they landed it safely on Mars, and they\u2019re driving it around on Mars right now.\u00a0 I\u2019ll put NASA scientists up against the polluters\u2019 payroll scientists all day long.\nWe\u2019ve got insurers and reinsurers whose business depends on understanding the mounting risk of natural disasters\u2014folks like Munich Re, Swiss Re, Allianz, and the Reinsurance Association of America.\u00a0\nWe\u2019ve got state and local governments who are already acting.\u00a0 Nine northeastern states, for instance, including my own Rhode Island, engage in cap-and-trade through RGGI, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. \u00a0Four Florida counties share resources and strategies for adapting to climate change through a bipartisan Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact. And those are just two examples of many from around the country.\nA coalition of investors worth nearly $3 trillion just wrote to forty-five fossil fuel companies seeking explanations about risks facing their fossil fuel investments.\u00a0 Divestment campaigns are popping up at college campuses across the nation.\u00a0\nMajor utilities accept the science, and are investing in renewables and improving efficiency.\u00a0 Energy companies PG&E, the Public Service Company of New Mexico, and Exelon all quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after a Chamber official called for putting climate science on trial like the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.\u00a0\nAmerica\u2019s flagship companies, like General Motors, Ford, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Nike, Apple, Walmart, and Alcoa, all recognize the serious implications of climate change.\nThis support is latent, though, and it\u2019s unorganized.\u00a0 It is time to wake up and to gather our armies.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to create \u201callied command.\u201d\u00a0 Assemble our divisions.\u00a0 Agree on a strategy.\u00a0 Go into action.\u00a0\u00a0 That will affect the calculus in Congress.\u00a0\nAnd most importantly, Mr. President, we have the American people.\u00a0 Sixty-five percent of voters support the President \u201ctaking significant steps to address climate change now.\u201d\u00a0 Sixty-five percent.\u00a0 Another poll found that 82 percent of Americans believe we should start preparing now for rising sea levels and severe storms from climate change.\nThose in Congress who would deny science to protect the polluting interests increasingly look ridiculous, even to their own side.\u00a0 \u00a0Misleading statements in the media, like the stuff purveyed by the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal, are losing their battle and losing their audience.\nIt\u2019s not just time to wake up.\u00a0 People are waking up.\u00a0 And inevitably, the truth will be fully known.\nBut the polls show clearly that climate denial is a losing tactic:\u00a0\n \nFour out of five voters under thirty-five support the President taking action to address climate change.\u00a0\nFifty-two percent of young Republican voters would be less likely to vote for someone who opposed the President\u2019s climate action plan.\u00a0\nEven a majority of Texans say more should be done about global warming by all levels of government, with 62 percent of Texans saying more should be done in Congress.\u00a0\n \nAnd for those last holdout deniers comes this:\n \n\u00a0Fifty-three percent of young Republican voters-- Republican voters under age 35\u2014said they would describe a climate denier as \u201cignorant,\u201d \u201cout-of-touch,\u201d or \u201ccrazy.\u201d\n \nRepublicans outside of Congress are trying to lead their party back to reality, and away from what even young Republicans are calling ignorant, out of touch, and crazy extremist views.\u00a0 They support a revenue-neutral carbon fee.\u00a0 Republicans like our former colleagues in Congress Sherwood Boelhert, Wayne Gilchrest, and Robert Inglis.\u00a0\nRepublicans like former Environmental Protection Agency Administrators William Ruckelshaus, Lee Thomas, William Reilly, and Christine Todd Whitman, who served under Presidents Nixon, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush, respectively.\u00a0\nAdvisors to former Republican presidents like President Reagan\u2019s Secretary of State George Schultz, Reagan\u2019s Economic Policy Advisor Art Laffer\u2014known as \u201cReagan\u2019s Economist\u201d\u2014and David Frum, speechwriter for George W. Bush.\u00a0\nAnd here\u2019s what the Republican presidential nominee had to say five years ago:\nAnd I quote: \u201c[I]n the end, we\u2019re all left with the same set of facts.\u00a0 The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington.\u00a0 Good stewardship, prudence, and simple common sense demand that we [act to] meet the challenge, and act quickly. . . .\u00a0 We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not one of them. . . .\u00a0 [T]he fundamental incentives of the market are still on the side of carbon-based energy.\u00a0 This has to change before we can make the decisive shift away from fossil fuels. . . . \u00a0[T]here were costs we weren\u2019t counting, . . . [a]nd these terrible costs have added up now, in the atmosphere, in the oceans, and all across the natural world. . . .\u00a0 We Americans like to say that there is no problem we can\u2019t solve, however complicated, and no obstacle we cannot overcome if we meet it together.\u00a0 I believe this about our country.\u00a0 I know this about our country.\u00a0 And now it is time for us to show those qualities once again.\u201d End quote.\nIt is indeed time for us to show those qualities once again.\u00a0 It is time to wake up.\u00a0 It is time to turn back from the misleading propaganda of the polluters, the misguided extremism of the Tea Party, and the mistaken belief that we can ignore without consequence the harm that our carbon pollution is causing.\u00a0 It is time to face facts, be adults, and meet our responsibilities.\nMr. President, I give these speeches because climate change is real, because the campaign of denial is as poisonous to our democracy as carbon pollution is to our atmosphere and oceans, and because I am confident.\u00a0 I am confident that we can do this.\u00a0 We can strengthen our economy, we can redirect our future, we can protect our democracy, and we can do our duty, our duty to the generations that will follow us, and that will look back in shame unless we change our program. \u00a0\u00a0But we have to pay attention, Mr. President.\u00a0 We have to wake up.\nI yield the floor.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://web.archive.org/web/20131203183542/http://www.whitehouse.senate.gov:80/news/speeches/sen-whitehouses-50th-weekly-climate-change-speech"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.7722579650580883, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}