Amy Klobuchar: “the issue we are addressing this week, global climate change, is a challenge with so many dimensions. Some are moral…”

“the issue we are addressing this week, global climate change, is a challenge with so many dimensions. Some are moral, some are economic, and some are scientific. I want to spend my first few minutes today talking about the science because we cannot get the policy right unless we get the science right. I come from a State that believes in science. Minnesota is home to the Mayo Clinic and other great medical institutions. It helped launch the green revolution in agriculture half a century ago. Today it is home to a great research university in the University of Minnesota and high-tech companies such as 3M and Medtronic. We have brought the world everything from the pacemaker to the Post-it notes. My State believes in science. Over the last few days, we have heard a great deal of debate about the science of climate change. I believe the debate should be over. The facts are in and the science is clear. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded that the evidence of global warming is now unequivocal and apparent on every continent of our planet. It is plain in erratic weather patterns, in shrinking wildlife habitat, and the melting of the permafrost. Just last week, a new report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and written by some of our top environmental researchers reached the same conclusion. They wrote: There is robust scientific consensus that human-induced climate change is occurring.…”