Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the storied career of America's foremost climatologist, and the world's, Dr. James Hansen. Last week Dr. Hansen retired from his position as head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. After 46 years at NASA, he's leaving the agency to focus his efforts on the political and legal efforts to limit greenhouse gases. He started his career by working on the atmosphere of the planet Venus in the sixties. Luckily for the world, he changed his emphasis to the atmosphere of the Earth. Dr. Hansen is perhaps known best for his 1988 testimony to the Senate committees that helped raise the initial broad awareness of global warming across the United States. He sounded the warning bell of the effects of climate change, and can be credited with bringing the issue to the forefront of the American conscience. Dr. Hansen, who fittingly called the proposed building of the Keystone XL pipeline akin to the ``lighting of the carbon bomb,'' is one of the world's leading advocates of decreased fossil fuel consumption. While his departure from the Federal climate research community will undoubtedly leave a gaping hole in NASA's climate program, I look forward to the role Dr. Hansen will take on his retirement as he pursues actions to limit emissions and his fight against the development of Keystone and other tar sands pipelines. The future of our planet rests in the hands of scientists like Dr.…”