On the recordNovember 10, 2015
I thank Senator Whitehouse. When I introduced Senator Whitehouse to the mayor of Cleveland and to a number of experts in Cleveland, from public health officials, to wind energy entrepreneurs, to community groups to whom climate change matters so much, I introduced him as probably--not just probably--there is no person in the Senate who has done a better job of focusing public attention on the threats of climate change and what it means to our way of life and what it means to our country. I thank Senator Whitehouse for that. I want to point to what happened in Toledo, OH, in 2011. This green color in this picture is algae bloom. This is a small boat that is making its way through the algae bloom. This wasn't even the year Toledo residents lost their water supply. In 2014--last August, 15 months ago--algae blooms were so serious in Lake Erie and in the western basin--Toledo is in the western basin of Lake Erie, Cleveland is sort of central, and then Ashtabula and Erie, PA, are in the eastern basin of Lake Erie. Again, this is not the most serious situation, although the algae bloom is so overwhelming here. This green is all algae bloom. The lake actually should be the color-- where you can see dark blue here, that is normally the color of the lake. We can see the wake of the boat, and that is the normal color of the lake, as the boat plowed through the algae bloom.…





