Political Quotes

“this is my 283rd travel to the Senate floor to ask that we wake up to the threat of climate change--an issue that demands, right now, American leadership. Over the recent recess, I traveled to parts of the world where climate catastrophe looms, and I saw firsthand what the absence of American leadership has cost. My first stop was to the 2022 Our Oceans Conference in Palau, where I joined President Biden's Special Envoy for Climate, Secretary John Kerry, to discuss the state of our oceans. It was another productive Our Oceans Conference, leading to 410 commitments from around the world, worth $16.35 billion, to fund climate action, reduce plastic pollution, and reduce illegal fishing, among other things. These commitments are, indeed, a hopeful sign. Palau is a tiny, beautiful ocean nation on the very far side of the Pacific Rim. This archipelago relies almost entirely on the ocean, with tourism as the dominant industry and fishing as a way of life. Palau has a front-row seat to the changes taking place in our ocean. Rising ocean temperatures and sea levels, acidification, disrupted fisheries, more frequent storms--they see and feel these every day. I have spoken a lot about the amount of heat trapped by greenhouse gas pollution and then absorbed by our oceans. It is equivalent to multiple Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs being detonated in the ocean every second. That is the heat load that we are adding.…”