Chris Van Hollen: “if I might, that is why it is always interesting to hear some of the critics of climate change say: Do you know what?…”

“if I might, that is why it is always interesting to hear some of the critics of climate change say: Do you know what? Carbon dioxide has been around since the beginning of the planet, so it can't possibly be harmful. Of course it has been around forever, but, as Senator Whitehouse pointed out, it has been around for hundreds of thousands and millions of years at a certain concentration. If you look at all of the evidence from NASA scientists and others, you will see that level of concentration bumped up and down within a certain range for all of those millennia that the Senator talked about. Yet, in the last 150 years, especially the last century, it shot straight through the roof. It is an excellent example of the phrase ``everything in moderation.'' Obviously, carbon dioxide has been part of our planet's gases all along, but the fact is that we have unleashed that carbon dioxide, in the form of fossil fuels, that has been trapped in the Earth for millions and millions of years. We have somehow just let it out within the last 100, and that is what is creating harmful, poisonous levels of carbon dioxide that are poisonous for the planet. Just like with a human being, when you put poison in the body, the body lets you know. The Earth is screaming out in all of these different ways to let us know that it has reached its limit when it comes to carbon dioxide pollution. That is why we have to do something about it.”