Yesterday, Senators Al Franken (D-MN) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-MN) held an hour-long colloquy on the hard reality of climate change and the polluter-driven inaction in the U.S. Senate. They discussed not only future threats, but also the changes in severe weather and climate that are already causing havoc to our nation. Whitehouse and Franken agreed that the nation is following a dangerous path by ignoring scientists because of the pollution industry.

Watch it:

Here are a few quotes from the full transcript:

“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.”

“The 25th doctor says: It is a good thing you came to me, because all this diet and exercise would have been a complete waste. You are doing fine. Those other doctors are in the pockets of the fresh fruit and vegetable people. He says: Enjoy life, eat whatever you want, keep smoking, and watch a lot of TV. That is my advice. Then you learn the doctor was paid a salary by the makers of Twinkies, which, don’t get me wrong, are a delicious snack food and should be eaten in moderation.”

“Climategate should properly be known as climategate-gate because it was the scandal that was phony.”

“We are playing with very dangerous effects when we ignore climate change at the behest of a tiny minority of scientists and their polluter industry funders behind them.”

“If we can pull away from the lies and the phony science and the polluter-paid nonsense that has so far distracted us from doing our duty as a nation, we can get into the race that is going on in this world for the energy future.”

“Fifty years ago we were in a global space race. Today we are in a global clean energy race.”

“Climate change is real, and failure to address it is bad for our standing in the global economy, bad for the Federal budget, and bad for our national security. We can do better than that for our children and our grandchildren and posterity.”

(HT WWF’s Nick Sundt)

With incidents of prolonged drought, rising sea levels, and flooding on the rise, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) introduced a bill on Wednesday to require federal natural resource agencies to plan for the long-term effects of climate change, and encourage states to prepare natural resources adaptation plans. The Safeguarding America’s Future and Environment Act (SAFE) Act also would create a science advisory board to ensure that the planning uses the best available science. The proposed legislation would require the development of a coordinated national adaptation strategy:

Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Panel shall develop a strategy to protect, restore, and conserve natural resources so that natural resources become more resilient, adapt to, and withstand the ongoing and expected impacts of climate variability and change.

It would also encourage, but not require, state-specific adaptation plans.

Effects of climate change mentioned as examples in the legislation are droughts and heatwaves, storms and floods; wildfires; outbreaks of forest pests and invasive species; flooding and erosion of coastal areas due to rising sea levels; melting glaciers and sea ice; thawing permafrost; shifting fish, wildlife, and plant population ranges; disruptive shifts in the timing of fish, wildlife, and plant natural history cycles, such as blooming, breeding, and seasonal migrations; and ocean acidification.

The legislation is cosponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), also a member of EPW. Baucus has repeatedly opposed action to limit climate change pollution.

Download the SAFE Act (as prepared for introduction).

“We are earning the scorn and condemnation of history…. It is magical thinking to imagine that somehow we will be spared the plain and foreseeable consequences of our failure of duty.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) delivered a 23-minute stemwinder last week on the failure of the U.S. Senate to act on global warming pollution.  Here’s the remarkably blunt opening:

Mr. President, I am here to speak about what is currently an unpopular topic in this town. It has become no longer politically correct in certain circles in Washington to speak about climate change or carbon pollution or how carbon pollution is causing our climate to change.

This is a peculiar condition of Washington. If you go out into, say, our military and intelligence communities, they understand and are planning for the effects of carbon pollution on climate change. They see it as a national security risk. If you go out into our nonpolluting business and financial communities, they see this as a real and important problem. And, of course, it goes without saying our scientific community is all over this concern. But as I said, Washington is a peculiar place, and here it is getting very little traction.

Here in Washington we feel the dark hand of the polluters tapping so many shoulders. And where there is power and money behind that dark hand, therefore, a lot of attention is paid to that little tap on the shoulder. What we overlook is that nature — God’s Earth — is also tapping us all on the shoulder, with messages we ignore at our peril. We ignore the messages of nature of God’s Earthand we ignore the laws of nature of God’s Earth at our very grave peril.

I have little doubt future generations will curse our names if we keep listening to the “siren song of well-paying polluters.”  Whitehouse makes this point better than any national politician I’ve heard — by reviewing the science and the politics in a speech few of his fellow politicos have the guts or wisdom or conscience to deliver.

This is a speech Obama should have given — heck, he still can — but his spin-meisters (notably David Axelrod) and his own fecklessness prevent him.  And so his presidency is headed toward the (coal) ash-heap of history.

Here is the must-see video of the whole speech and the full transcript ( via TP Green):

Read more

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in a Senate hearing on the EPA budget this morning, decried the extraordinary amount of spending by corporate global warming polluters to lobby Congress. Reading from a report on new lobbying disclosures, Whitehouse noted that carbon polluters such as electric utilities and oil and gas companies have spent nearly $80 million on lobbying just in the first quarter of 2009. Whitehouse concludes:

So if we wonder why the Senate is the last place in America that still doesn’t get it – that climate change is a real problem for people and that carbon pollution is something that people should pay for when they emit it, big utilities, big industry — gee, connect the dots.

Watch it:

“For as long as there’s been pollution,” Sen. Whitehouse explained, “there has been a constant battle with polluters who don’t want to pay the costs of their pollution, either preventing or cleaning it up”:

They’d like to just dump it and have it be somebody else’s problem. There’s absolutely nothing new about that. Polluters don’t want to pay. What’s new is our understanding of what the costs are of carbon pollution. Economic costs, environmental costs, wildlife and habitat costs, and as we’ve recently learned, very significant national security costs.

The E&E News story Whitehouse entered in the Congressional Record explains how pollution lobbyists are vastly outspending environmental groups and clean energy companies: Read more