Here’s part II of “Fighting Global Warming”.

JK spoke at a hearing held by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works earlier this week and below is an excerpt from the hearing. Sen. Barbara Boxer convened the full committee for a hearing entitled “Senators’ Perspectives on Global Warming.” More more detail on the hearing is available at the committee website.

One interesting interaction came just before JK spoke at the hearing. Sen. Tom Carper asked Sen. Boxer if he could say a few words and proceeded to say:

CARPER: I want to welcome Senator Feinstein and Senator Kerry to this hearing, to our committee. ... And I’d just say to Senator Kerry, my friend, my old Navy buddy, that I think you were - and I’ve said this to you before - I think you were ahead in your time in 2004 when you ran for president with a huge focus on energy independence and a great road map to get us there. There’s an old saying, “A prophet is without honor in his own land.” You were a prophet, and the rest of us unfortunately just a few years behind you. But thank you for joining us today and for your leadership.

That’s probably not news to those who pay close attention to what JK says but it is nice to see it acknowledged in the Senate. And now, onto the rest of what JK has had to say lately about global warming and what we should be doing to address it.

 

Excerpt of Testimony before
the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee
on January 30, 2007

BOXER: Senator Kerry, we are honored you’re here. You have 10 minutes.

KERRY: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Thank you, Senator Carper, for your comments. I appreciate it, and look forward to working with you.

Madam Chairman, thank you so much for having this hearing. It’s wonderful to have a chair of this committee particularly who is looking at this issue and wanting to move forward.

I just came back from the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, and it’s interesting that this was really the dominant issue on the table among businessmen and leaders all over the world, and it was the centerpiece of Prime Minister Blair’s comments to the plenary session there. So everyone in the world is looking to the United States now. We’re 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. We have a responsibility to act. And like it or not, no matter what happens, yes, we need a global solution but, if the United States doesn’t act, there won’t be a solution.

I thank you for the conversations we’ve had. We’re going to have some hearings in the Small Business Committee to see how small business can proceed, and also in the Commerce Committee on which you serve, and you’ll sort of have a double hat to wear in that capacity. But we’re going to use every leverage we have here to move on this.

Back in 1987 - yes, 1987 - on the Commerce Committee under the leadership of then-Senator Gore, we held the first hearings on global climate change. And then in 1990 we held an inter-parliamentary conference with Senator Worth, Senator Chafee and others, trying to raise the profile of this issue. In 1992 - and I mention this history because I want to emphasize the urgency and why we’re here - in ‘92 I was a member of the delegation that went with those same folks to Rio for the Earth Summit, and we came together with about 170 nations or so to discuss various ways to tackle this problem back then.

We came up with a voluntary framework, the international framework on climate change, which President George Herbert Walker Bush signed, we ratified, but it was voluntary. Nations were given an opportunity to participate, and we set in process a series of meetings, several of which I attended. I went to Buenos Aires for the COP meeting. I went to The Hague for the COP meeting, and we began to see the tensions between the less developed countries and the developed countries and the near developed countries, and the struggle to try to get this passed.

I managed the Kyoto agreement issue on the floor of the Senate when the Byrd-Hagel resolution came up, and we accepted the notion that, yes, we want less developed countries in, but we as a nation never made an effort during those years to try to bring less developed countries to the table by working agreements with them for technology transfer, for recognition of the steps they were taking, for fuel switching and other things.

And so the bottom line is nothing happened. We’re here in 2006, 16 years or so after these meetings, and almost 20 years after the first hearings, and the United States, some are still in denial and we’re still not proceeding forward. <!-more-> The American people are moving ahead of the Congress, which is astonishing and a sad statement about Congressional irresponsibility. Three hundred seventy six mayors from 50 states have signed on to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement to advance the goals of Kyoto. And now we have mounting scientific evidence, which will be capped in a report that will come forward from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change written by more than 600 scientists, Madam Chairman, reviewed by another 600 experts, and edited by officials from 154 governments to reflect the scientific consensus, and already it’s being called “The smoking gun of global warming” by those who have studied it.

The basic facts are that, at every point in between the two Poles of this planet, the Earth’s surface is heating up, and at a catastrophic rate. According to the 2001 IPCC report, we’ve already increased an average of 1.4 degrees, about 0.8 degrees centigrade. With what’s in the atmosphere today, there is an inevitable increase - we can’t do anything about it - up to about 1.4, 1.5 degrees.

Scientists now tell us by consensus recent discussions with Jim Hanson, with John Holdren at Harvard and Woods Hole, say that we really only have a latitude of about 0.6 degrees. You’ve got to hold the Earth’s temperature increase to 2 degrees centigrade, or we have catastrophic contact (ph). A few years ago they thought it was 3 degrees. A few years ago they thought we should hold it to 550 parts per million, but now they realize we’ve got to hold it to 450 parts per million to hold it down to 2 degrees because of what we’ve already seen in terms of the destruction that’s taking place.

In 2005, 98; 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, were respectfully the six warmest years on record and all but one of the hottest 20 years on record have occurred since 1980, since the time they started measuring. We know this is the result of human activity, and we also know that carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased about 30 percent from the pre-industrial level of 270 parts per million. It’s currently at 370 parts per million.

So, Madam Chairman, that means we have the latitude of going from 370 to 450, and this is the highest level of concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at any time in the past 150,000 years. If we let it go the way it is now, it could reach 600 to 700 parts per million, and there will be catastrophe.

Now, here’s the bottom line. Those who oppose doing something serious, as John Holdren says, to be credible, they have to explain what alternative mechanism could account for the pattern of changes being observed, and they have to explain how it could be that the known human-caused buildup in greenhouse gases is not having an impact. So they have to show those two things, what’s causing it? Why is what we’ve done not causing it? And they have failed to even suggest a legitimate theory for either of those.

BOXER: (OFF-MIKE)

KERRY: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate that.

So we’re seeing these changes all over the country. I’ve just been finishing writing a book about not just this but all the environmental challenges we face today, toxins, water, oceans, et cetera. But as I read about this, after 22 years in the Senate, I have to tell you it became more and more ominous, more and more frightening, more and more urgent and compelling than anything I’ve read in all the time I’ve been here, with the exception of a couple of security reports. But this is national security.

You’ve got hunters noticing these changes in Arkansas. The winter duck population has shrunk from a million to half a million over the past half-century. Last year, drought dropped that population to 160,000. In South Carolina they wouldn’t have duck hunting now if it weren’t for farm-raised ducks, and the population of migrant ducks is down to about 3,000. the number of category four and five hurricanes has nearly doubled in the last years. As John Holdren and others will tell you, climate change is the envelope within which all the other changes take place, species change, climate, winds, hurricanes, ocean temperature, and there is this ominous notion of a tipping point, which we have to avoid.

So the bottom line is, Madam Chairwoman, the only way to avoid the catastrophe that they warn us of, the ice in the oceans in the Arctic is going to melt. Jim Hanson sat with me several months ago and said it’s no longer a question of if, when or how. It’s just a question of it’s going to happen, probably 30 years from now. What happens is that ice melts, that more ocean is exposed. As more ocean is exposed, the hearing of the sun has a greater impact on the warming of the ocean, which has a greater impact ultimately on the Greenland ice Sheet.

Now, we’re already seeing melting underneath that ice sheet on the top of the rock, and the potential for slippage of that rock and major break-off like the one we saw on Ellesmere Island a few months ago - actually a year and a half ago it was detected, but it was reported recently - where you had a 66-kilometer square ice sheet that just broke off and is now floating as its own island in the ocean.

The ice in the Arctic as it melts doesn’t change the displacement of the ocean, so sea level rise is not as much of an issue, though it’s going to increase. But if the Greenland ice sheet melts, you’ve got something ranging between a 16 and 23-foot seal level increase, which wipes out all the ports and lowlands and islands globally.

The impact of this on poor people, the impact of this on commerce, on species, on disease and all kinds of things is gigantic. So, Madam Chairwoman, the bottom line is the reason I mention all this, I know it’s accepted. I know the science is accepted - Senator Bingaman said it - but the urgency is not accepted up here. The urgency is just not accepted. There are business leaders who are showing greater urgency, the recent 10 corporations that announced what they’re going to do than the Congress of the United States is or than our government is. And there is only one way to deal with this issue. It is carbon dioxide that is the principal greenhouse gas emission that is causing—there are other greenhouse gases, but that’s the principal one, and you have to cap the level of these greenhouse gas initiatives. It’s the only way to do it. Now, Senator Snow and I introduced legislation last year to achieve this. We’re going to reintroduce it. We establish an economy-wide cap-and-tra de program to reduce these emissions, and we’ll set that out further later this week. But I remember being part of this debate in 1990 with John Sununu, George Mitchell, Bill Reilly and others at the table into the wee hours of the morning.

And I remember the industry sitting there saying to us if you do this, it’s going to cost $8 billion and it’s going to take 10 years, and you’re going to ruin the industry. And the environment community said, no, no, no, no, it won’t do that. If you do it, it’ll take $4 billion and it would be done in about four years, and it won’t ruin the industry.

Well, guess what? Both were wrong. It was done at about half the cost the environmental industry said it would, and in half the time. Why? Because no one was able to predict what happens when you start down the road and the technology begins to make advances, and technology begets technology and begets advances that we are not capable of predicting, which is why we need to make this commitment.

The fact is there are only three big ways of doing this. Number one, energy efficiency. There are enormous gains to be made in our country in terms of energy efficiency, and DuPont and General Electric and a host of companies are recognizing this and grabbing the profits. This is a for-profit effort, and we need to get people to realize this isn’t just sacrifice. This is an ability to take the lead on health, on the environment, on jobs, on national security as well as the ability to live up to our obligation morally for the next generation. So you get about give major pluses. There are few public policy choices where you get that.

The final comment I’d make, Madam Chairwoman, let me pose this to you. There are two sides here. There are sides of people who are still obstructing, still saying no, still fighting this, status quoists, and they refuse to accept some of even the science now, then, there are those fighting to make it happen. Well, what’s the downside of accepting the predictions of the Stern report that says we can do this at 1 percent of GDP and the costs of not doing it are five to twentyfold times more expensive than the cost of doing it?

So I ask colleagues in the Senate and I ask Americans, simple question. If the people who think climate change is a serious problem are wrong, and we take the steps to deal with it, what’s the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is we have cleaner air, a healthier nation, more jobs created. We lead the world in technology. We’ve made ourselves more energy independent, and we have a better environment.

What’s the worst that can happen if the people who say it’s not happening would want to stop it? What’s the worst if they’re wrong? Catastrophe, absolute catastrophe. So the question for the United States Senate, for the Congress, for the country, is which side of the ledger do we want to fall on, and I think the answer to that is pretty clear.

BOXER: Senator Kerry, I want to thank you for your excellent contribution to this. You gave us the overview that I certainly agree with. I mean, it’s a very simple thing. If you do the right thing, the conservative thing, really, the conservative thing is to say the worst could happen. Let’s prepare. You get five or six tremendous benefits, starting with the health of our families, saving in their pocketbooks and the rest. Profits for industry, jobs we can export, a safer world because we don’ t have to rely on folks we don’t want to rely on, and you wait it out.

So that’s why I hope we can really come together, and with your help I honestly think that we can do it.

KERRY: I forgot two things I just wanted to add, closing out.

BOXER: Please go ahead, yes.

KERRY: In addition to the energy efficiency, Madam Chairwoman, obviously the clean and alternative fuels are something everybody’s talking about, but we’ve got to be a little bit careful about where the major input is put into that, because there’s huge land use, water issues and energy issues, consumption issues, and the focus on just ethanol, not cellulosic.

And secondly, we have to look carefully at the clean coal technology issue and sequestration. There are serious questions about how much sequestration you can actually achieve, and we have to push forward on it. Those are the three big ones, and those are the places we’re going to get the greatest grab in the shortest time. If we accept the science, and I think we’re duty bound to do it, that you only have a 10-year window. If there’s a 10-year window, and I think we have a moral responsibility to accept that, then you’ve got to grab the biggest pieces the fastest you can, as you know.

BOXER: Right. We call it the low hanging fruit, and there’s a lot of it around. I mean, the terrible news is we’ve done so little. The good news is we’ve done so little it’s easy to start. That’s really kind of where we are. We’ve just got to start and get out of our paralysis.

Well, Senator, I also thank you for making the distinction between alternative fuels and renewable fuels because, when the president talked about alternatives, we don’t know that they’re clean. We don’t know that they’ll necessarily help us with the greenhouse gas emissions. So there’s lots of things we have to be wary of. Obviously you are a leader on this. You have been a leader for many years, and I am very pleased. We’ll work together both on the legislation that will come before this committee, as well as in the Commerce Committee, where we can really work together on fuel economy and the rest.

So I think it’s going to be a good year for us. We’re going to move forward. I thank you for your contribution.

KERRY: My pleasure. Thank you very much.

- end of excerpt -