Global Warming
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here this afternoon because, on May 12, 2011, the National Academy of Sciences released a significant report entitled ``America's Climate Choices.'' In 2007, Congress directed the academy to write this report. The researchers who contributed to the report include scientists, economists, and policymakers from world-class institutions such as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, DuPont, and MIT. The list of the States from which the committee comes is very broad: California--scientists came from--North Carolina, Maryland, Georgia, Virginia, Michigan, Wyoming, Washington State, Tennessee, Arizona, Missouri, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Colorado, and Texas. The report was peer reviewed.
I ask unanimous consent that at the end of my remarks the list of the committee, which is page V of the report, be printed as an exhibit.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1)
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. The report was peer reviewed by academic reviewers from such universities as Stanford, the University of Texas, the University of South Carolina, Harvard, and Carnegie Mellon. Yet this significant report, requested by Congress, drafted by experts, peer reviewed by science, has fallen on deaf ears in our Nation's Capital. Why is this? Is it because the report addresses a problem we have already solved? No. Is it because the report tells us not to worry? No; it is not that either. The report, ``America's Climate Choices,'' adds to the body of climate science evidence and reflects the clear consensus of the scientific community, which is that carbon pollution is creating dangers across our planet and must be addressed if we are to avoid its most disastrous consequences.
These are the facts in the report:
Climate change is occurring. It is very likely caused by human activities and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.
Are we prepared for these significant risks? No, we are not, concludes the report. I quote again:
The United States lacks an overarching national strategy to respond to climate change.
The report warns further:
Waiting for unacceptable impacts to occur before taking action is imprudent because the effects of greenhouse gas emissions do not fully manifest themselves for decades and, once manifested ..... will persist for hundreds or even thousands of years.
Starkly, the report calls on us now to begin mobilizing for adaptation. The precise quote: ``Begin mobilizing now for adaptation.''
The report is an urgent call to action by a widespread group of our most responsible scientists, peer reviewed by our most responsible universities. Why, then, is it being ignored? I believe many of my colleagues are ignoring this report because they are hoping this problem of carbon pollution changing the atmosphere and the climate of our planet will go away. They are hoping that somehow, if we don't discuss it--indeed, if we deny it--climate change will not happen. If we ignore the laws of physics and chemistry and biology, those laws may cease to apply to us. We can repeal a lot of laws in this Senate, but we cannot repeal the laws of nature, and we are fools to ignore them.
Some even attack the underlying science; this is a strategy that is as old as industry reaction to science industry does not like. A recent book looked at the EPA efforts to protect us from secondhand smoke at a time when the tobacco industry wanted the unregulated ability to smoke and did not want people protected from secondhand smoke and pretended secondhand smoke was not dangerous. The writers conclude:
Most of the science upon which the EPA relied with respect to secondhand smoke was independent, so attacks on the EPA wouldn't work alone. They have to be coupled with attacks on the science itself.
A memo from Philip Morris's communications director, Victor Han, said the following:
Without a major concentrated effort to expose the scientific weaknesses of the EPA case, without an effort to build considerable reasonable doubt, then virtually all other efforts will be significantly diminished in effectiveness.
In other words, in order to create doubt, they had to attack the science directly, and they have done so, to the point where Mr. Han said the EPA is an agency that is, at least, misguided and aggressive and, at worst, corrupt and controlled by environmental terrorists.
So it is not a news story for industry to try to deny the science that shows the danger of what an industry is providing. But these attacks simply will not stand. The facts are too strong against them.
Over the last 800,000 years, Earth's atmosphere has contained CO
2 levels of 170 to 300 parts per million. That is solid science. That is a fact. That is not a theory. It is not in dispute. That is the range within which humankind has lived for 8,000 centuries. By the way, it is not clear that 8,000 centuries ago mankind had yet mastered the art of controlling fire. Essentially, the entirety of human history has taken place within that bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
In 1863, the Irish scientist John Tyndall determined that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere trapped heat and trapped more heat as the concentration of carbon dioxide increases. That is textbook science. It has been textbook science for generations. That is not in dispute either.
Since the Industrial Revolution, our industrialized societies had burned carbon fuels in measurable amounts, usually measured as gigatons or metric tons. A gigaton, by the way, is a billion, with a B, metric tons. We now release, depending on the year, up to 7 or 8 gigatons--7 or 8 billion metric tons--each year. That is not in dispute either.
We now measure carbon concentrations going up in the Earth's atmosphere. Again, that is a measurement. This is not a theory. The present concentration exceeds 390 parts per million. Remember, for 8,000 centuries, humanity has existed in a bandwidth of 170 to 300 parts per million, and we are now at 390 parts per million--well outside the bounds we have inhabited for the last 800,000 years. That also is not in dispute. That is a fact.
``America's Climate Choices'' documents the changes in climate that have already been observed and measured in the United States. Again, not theory but documented, measured, and observed. These are also not in dispute. Over the past 50 years, our U.S. average air temperature has increased by more than two degrees Fahrenheit. Our total U.S. precipitation has increased, on average, by about 5 percent. Sea levels have risen along most of the U.S. coasts. Heavy downpours have become more frequent and more intense in the Southeastern and Western United States and the frequency of large wildfires and the length of the fire season have increased substantially in both the Western United States and in the Presiding Officer's home State of Alaska.
If we take a look at the increase in carbon concentrations in our atmosphere, they can be plotted. Today is one of the last days our pages are with us after many months, and they have been here in school in the very early mornings. They have been learning mathematics, and it wouldn't surprise me if our pages were able to take a series of points and plot a trajectory off of those points. That is not a complicated scientific endeavor. If we plot the trajectory of our carbon concentration, it puts us at 688 parts per million in the year 2095, and 1,097 parts per million in the year 2195. That is a pretty long way off, but when we think that for 800,000 years we have inhabited a planet in which the carbon concentration in the atmosphere was between 170 and 700 parts per million and in a matter of a century and a little more we will have more than doubled that concentration and another century hence another 300 points up, that is a very significant--indeed, an epic--shift. These carbon concentrations are outside the bounds not of the last 8,000 centuries but of millions of years of this planet's history.
The National Academy of Science report warns us this way as well:
In addition to the potential impacts that we are able to identify, there is a real possibility of impacts that have not been anticipated.
Let me say that again:
In addition to the potential impacts that we are able to identify, there is a real possibility of impacts that have not been anticipated.
When we travel outside a range that has protected our species and our planet for 8,000 centuries, we create forces that are hard to anticipate and, consequently, could create dangers that are hard to anticipate.
This National Academy of Sciences report does not just stop at cataloging the effects of climate change, however. As requested by Congress and as indicated by the report's title--``America's Climate Choices''--the report lays out the choices we have moving forward, if only we will acknowledge the facts of this problem and act responsibly.
The laws of nature, of course, do not care if we are paying attention. Climate change is happening and it poses grave risks to us and it will go forward whether or not we choose to acknowledge it. As I said earlier, we can do a lot of repealing of laws in this Senate, but we don't get to repeal the laws of nature. There are real risks we are facing, but there are also many positive reasons we should address the problem of carbon pollution. Developing clean and truly renewable energy sources and working to run our American businesses more efficiently will help us retain our economic leadership in the global marketplace, and that means jobs for Americans.
Here is the report again on the potential harm to our economy if we don't invest in a clean energy future:
The European Union has already increased its reliance on renewable energy and put a price on CO
2 emissions from major sources without detectable adverse economic effects. China has placed low carbon and clean energy industries at the heart of the country's strategy for industrial growth, and is making large scale public investments (for instance, in ``smart grid'' energy transmission systems) to support this growth. ..... Firms operating in the United States could find themselves increasingly out of step with the rest of the world and without the same robust domestic markets for climate-friendly products. Moreover, U.S. firms in energy-intensive sectors could be disadvantaged relative to their more energy efficient foreign competitors if energy prices rise in coming decades. .....
That is no idle speculation. We are already seeing the United States fall behind in clean energy technologies. We invented the first solar cell. We now rank fifth among the countries that manufacture solar components--fifth. The United States has only 1 of the top 10 companies manufacturing solar energy components and only 1 of the top 10 companies manufacturing wind turbines.
Half of America's installed wind turbines were manufactured overseas. Portsmouth, RI, has installed two wind turbines. One was manufactured by a Danish company. The other was manufactured by an Austrian company, its components delivered to Rhode Island by a Canadian distributor. Imagine if we drove demand for domestic manufacturing of wind turbines, of solar cells and panels, of rechargeable batteries. Imagine the people we could put back to work, the factories we could reopen, the energy this growth would infuse into our economy.
The new energy economy that beckons us has been described in congressional testimony as bigger than the tech revolution that brought us our laptops and our iPads and these BlackBerries, and the Internet services that are now such an important part of our daily lives, whether we Twitter or go on eBay or shop Amazon or do Facebook. In 15 years, that Internet grew from nothing to a $1 trillion economy--a $1 trillion economy. By comparison, the global energy economy is $6 trillion. We do not, as a country, want to fall out of the race to control that new energy economy. Yet that is exactly what we are doing.
America designed much of the underlying energy technology the world is using. But other countries have set smart policies and provided financial incentives to their industries, and now they are pulling away from us in bringing those new technologies to market. A $6 trillion market, and our foreign competitors are pulling away from us in bringing our own technologies to that market. Our competitors are seizing the advantage in the development and deployment of new energy technologies, and we are letting them.
But we can still change this trajectory. We can face up to the facts of climate change, see the opportunity in that looming threat, strengthen our economy, and create jobs. The National Academy of Sciences report is just one more reminder of this historic charge to our Congress--a historic charge at which right now we are failing in our duty.
I thank the Presiding Officer.
I yield the floor.
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