Political Quotes

“As the House Republicans prepare to shut down the government and threaten the global economy with debt ceiling blackmail, it's ironic that they refuse to allow their Members to vote on their own spending bills. They even refused to allow a conference committee with the Senate to resolve the budget impasse. I suppose it should be no surprise that their denial extends to climate change and the future of the planet, but Americans don't have that luxury. Between this summer's wildfires in the West, last year's drought, Superstorm Sandy, and the recent horrific flooding in Colorado, Americans are seeing the impact of climate change. Tuesday, Matt Russell, a fifth-generation Iowa farmer, gave a quick history of what climate change looks like in Iowa. In 2008, they suffered a 500-year flood. In 2010, there was another series of 100-year floods. The next year, the Missouri River wiped out thousands of acres of farm land, some of which will never be farmed again. In 2012 was the catastrophic drought. In half a decade, Iowa saw the worst flooding and the worst drought in over a century of record- keeping. This is what climate change will look like, and it will get worse and more extreme, which is exactly what's happening this year. On May 4, there was a foot of heavy wet snow, the most snow ever recorded in Iowa in May. Then it began raining, the most rain ever recorded in the month of May in Iowa. Then it was drought.…”