Political Quotes

“If I may, Madam President, I would like to remark on the figure that Senator Van Hollen used of the recent measurement in our atmosphere of a carbon dioxide concentration of 411 parts per million. Standing on its own, that may not seem particularly significant, so let's put that into context. NASA, which Senator Van Hollen mentioned and which has important facilities in Maryland, has been measuring this for a long time. By the way, I think NASA's scientists have demonstrated they know what they are talking about. They have rovers driving around on Mars right now, so they know what they are talking about. The scientists have gone back and determined what the carbon dioxide levels were on Earth over a period of 400,000 years. If you look back, there is a graph that NASA has that shows the carbon dioxide levels ramping up and down, up and down, over 400,000 years. For that entire time, the levels have stayed between 180 parts per million and 300 parts per million. That was the range within which the entire human species experienced our development--180 parts per million at the low and 300 parts per million at the high. At 411, we are now out of that range by almost the entire range. We are not out by a little; we are out of that range by a lot. Also, 400,000 years is a very long time. If you look at how long humankind has been farming--kind of the basic, organized activity of our species--the common view is that we really started farming about 12,000 years ago.…”