Remarks on Threat of Climate Change
Thank you, Madam Chairman, for convening this hearing, and Mr. Vice President, thank you for your testimony. I can say without reservation or fear of contradiction that two our strongest advocates for the environment sit in this room today, and it is a pleasure to be here with you both.
Mr. Vice President, I am proud to be part of a Senate and an Environment and Public Works Committee whose leaders take the threat of climate change as seriously as you do. Thanks in large part to your tireless work, the people of this nation already know much more about climate change than ever before, and are much more deeply engaged in finding solutions.
I received a letter recently from Dominic, a 12-year-old boy from South Coventry, Rhode Island. "I have asthma," he wrote, "so air quality is very important to me." He wanted our government to do more to curb carbon emissions so that he could grow up breathing clean air.
I have joined several of my colleagues on this committee in cosponsoring the Boxer-Sanders legislation to sharply reduce emissions that contribute to global warming, and we intend to keep working hard to make sure the American people understand that this problem is real, is urgent, and is not going away.
I come from a state whose 1.1 million residents live less than a 30-minute drive from the water: the Blackstone and Woonsquatucket rivers, our treasured Narragansett Bay, or the Atlantic Ocean itself. The long-term effects of global warming, including the prospect of a dramatic increase in sea levels, could be devastating to Rhode Island and its people.
With the help of my state's environmental community, as well as my wife, Dr. Sandra Whitehouse, who is a marine biologist, I made a presentation to this Committee earlier this year that showed clearly what would happen to our Ocean State in the event of a significant rise in sea levels, the nightmare scenario you suggest in "An Inconvenient Truth." Newport's historic harbor would be swept away. So would downtown Providence, and coastal communities like Barrington. It would be catastrophic.
Recently I joined Chairman Boxer and members of this committee on a congressional visit to New Orleans to see the damage caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. None of us will ever forget what we saw - and none of us who live in the paths of hurricanes past and future will ever underestimate the threat to lives, communities, and local economies of another major storm. We know that the warming of our world's oceans puts us at greater risk for stronger, deadlier hurricanes, and that taking action today to slow the rate of climate change worldwide could help reduce that risk.
Mr. Vice President, you have managed to translate complex science into language every American can understand. Your words have resonated with this Committee and across our country. I thank you for your testimony today, and your willingness to appear.
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