Bill Nelson: “thank you. And in 6 short minutes I want to give you my observations of why this is an extremely critical piece of…”

“thank you. And in 6 short minutes I want to give you my observations of why this is an extremely critical piece of legislation to the future of Planet Earth. I bring back to my mind's eye a picture that is embedded in my memory, looking out the window of our spacecraft 17 years ago back at Planet Earth. It is such a beautiful creation, suspended in the middle of nothing. It is a blue and white ball--blue from the oceans and white from the clouds--suspended in the middle of this black backdrop of space that goes on and on for billions of light years--an airless vacuum. And there, suspended in the midst of it is life. It is our home. When you look at the rim of the Earth from space, you see a thin little film, and that is the atmosphere that sustains all of life. From space, the Earth looks so beautiful and yet it looks so fragile. From that experience of 17 years ago, it made me want to be all the more a better steward of this planet, particularly when, with the naked eye, from that altitude I could actually see, for example, coming across South America--with the color contrast--the destruction of the rain forest in the upper Amazon region and, from the same window of the spacecraft, see the results of that destruction. Looking to the east, to the mouth of the Amazon River, I could see the silt that discolored the waters of the Atlantic for hundreds of miles.…”