On the recordDecember 14, 2011
as Senator Franken has pointed out, despite the efforts to mislead and create doubt, the jury is not out on whether climate change is happening and being caused by manmade carbon pollution; the verdict is, in fact, in, and the verdict is clear, as shown by this group of scientific organizations that signed a letter supporting our efforts to do something about carbon pollution in the Senate back in October of 2009: the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, the Geophysical Union, the Meteorological Society, the Natural Science Collections Alliance, the Botanical Society of America. Virtually every significant scientific organization accepts that these are the facts and that the verdict is in, and, indeed, there is some recent added support. The scientific community continues to examine this question. A recent report by James Hansen and Makiko Sato says: Climate change is likely to be the predominant scientific, economic, political and moral issue of the 21st century. The fate of humanity and nature may depend upon early recognition and understanding of human-made effects on Earth's climate. They continue: Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate global warming. Thus, goals of limiting human-made warming to 2 degrees Celsius are not sufficient--they are prescriptions for disaster.…
