Political Quotes

“I want to speak about the ongoing and deliberately overlooked problem of carbon pollution and what it is doing to our planet. In the context of these remarks, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article entitled ``Game Over for the Climate,'' written by Jim Hansen and published in yesterday's New York Times. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: [From The New York Times, May 9, 2012] Game Over for the Climate (By James Hansen) GLOBAL warming isn't a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves ``regardless of what we do.'' If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate. Canada's tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control.…”