Political Quotes

“Madam President, I come to again raise an alarm about the massive carbon pollution that we are dumping into our natural world and to tell the stories of two ocean creatures that are suffering from that pollution. Now, we may mock or ignore these creatures--these lesser creatures so far down the food chain from us--but we are fools to ignore the message of what is happening to them. Matthew 25:41 admonishes, ``as you did it to one of the least of these . . . you did it to me.'' So we ought not mock and ignore these lesser species because they also have a lesson for us, a warning. If we keep up what we are doing to them, it will soon enough be we who suffer. As Pope Francis warned: Slap Mother Nature, and she will slap you back. Let's start, before we get to the two species, with an overview. First, it is not just these two species. Science writer Elizabeth Kolbert has warned that we have entered a sixth great extinction--the first and only great extinction in humans' time on the planet--and that this great extinction is driven by manmade pollution and climate change. Scientists from around the globe have just issued one of the most comprehensive reports ever on Earth's biodiversity, and the head of that panel, Sir Robert Watson, summarized its findings this way. I quote him here: The overwhelming evidence . . . presents an ominous picture. The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever.…”