John Sarbanes actually said...

Many of us are excited because we feel like there is a new level of commitment to cleaning up the Bay

one of the challenges we have in responding to climate change as a matter of public policy is that it can be a very abstract concept.

Then here comes climate change to raise our awareness to another level and begin to push the public policy.

I have used for myself as a way of understanding this the metaphor or analogy, I guess, of a levee that we are worried about breaching.