Political Quotes

“Mr. President, a huge thanks to my colleagues who have been presenting so many important dimensions of this battle against a major threat to the health of our planet. Indeed, Henry David Thoreau asked, ``What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?'' That was an excellent question decades ago but an even more important one today, when we have a significant threat that endangers our forests, our farming, our fishing, and human civilization on this planet. This is the challenge of our generation, to bring human civilization together to address carbon pollution and its impacts. While in Paris something very exciting was going on--150 world leaders came together to kick off the final negotiations. That is unprecedented in human history. Why were so many leaders there? They were there because they are seeing the impacts in their own individual nations that are coming from the rising temperatures. They came together not just with their voice but with their pledges. In fact, more than 180 countries put forward pledges about how they were going to reduce the trajectory of their carbon pollution footprints. They know what is at stake. We certainly know in Oregon what is at stake. We see the pine beetle devastating forests, creating a red zone of dying trees. We see the longer forest fire season having a big impact, with more intense blazes and more of them over more months.…”