Political Quotes

“I rise today for ``Time to Wake Up'' speech No. 258 and my increasingly battered chart here to urge colleagues in the Senate to wake up and see the looming danger we face from climate change. Just look at the recent climate effects in our Southern Hemisphere. The most devastating wildfires anyone can remember have ripped across Australia, burned more than a fifth of Australia's forests, destroying thousands of homes, killing an estimated 1 billion animals, and making a day of breathing air in Sydney like smoking 37 cigarettes. In the ocean off Australia, there are new warnings that the Great Barrier Reef--a Wonder of the World visible from space--is doomed. The warmest temperatures ever were recorded in Antarctica--a 70- degree day when the average February temperature would be 33 degrees. Here is the Thwaites Glacier. Here on Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier, scientists drilled through 2,000 feet of ice, down to the ocean water below, and discovered water 2 degrees above freezing. With 70 degrees above and 2 degrees above, it is a melting sandwich. Losing that glacier would trigger almost 3 feet of sea level rise, and that glacier is going. Sea level rise brings me to the crash warnings that are the subject of this speech, crash warnings that are flashing throughout the economy. Sea level rise connects to these crash warnings because some of these crash warnings revolve around sea level rise in its crashing coastal property values.…”