Political Quotes

“I want to begin by thanking my friend and colleague, Senator Boxer, for her leadership. It was 2 years ago that she began a climate action task force that took place at noon, when all our stomachs were grumbling for food, but it provided some very interesting advice, very interesting knowledge, from interesting scholars who came to speak. She was then joined by Senator Whitehouse, when he came. Now there is Senator Markey, and there is quite a large number--certainly of Democratic Senators--who attend these Tuesday meetings at noon. So I want to thank them very much for this leadership. As we have heard already, debate over climate change has raged for years here on Capitol Hill, but the scientific facts actually have been conclusive for some time now. Most people I have found don't realize that the greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere just don't go away. They do not dissipate. These gases can stay for decades. Our actions--the greenhouse gas pollution we put into the air and the forests we cut down--are changing the composition of Earth's atmosphere, increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to above 400 parts per million. Just look at this chart. As this chart shows, these are global warming gases. This is carbon dioxide. You can see how it has run quite along at this level, and then in the last few years it has begun to jump up, so much that the average in 2013 was 396 parts per million.…”