Lieberman on Climate Change

Preserving Our Planet Remarks by Senator Joseph Lieberman. The event was sponsored by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the Brookings Institution.

The text of Senator Lieberman's floor statement on the Climate Stewardship Act of 2005. Folks, this bill needs to pass this time around.

Mr. President, I'm honored in rising with my friend and colleague Senator McCain to introduce the Climate Stewardship Act.

It’s an urgent matter. I was thinking of one clause that I could remove from Senator McCain’s comments. He said, “Suppose Senator Lieberman and I are deluded.” It struck me, in the battles we fought many times, alone or together, people have thought we were deluded. I'd rather be deluded in the company of John McCain than anybody else I can think of; but let me say this: we are not deluded in our battle to get the United States government to assume a leadership role in stopping this planet of ours from warming, with disastrous consequences for the way we, and certainly our children and grandchildren, will be forced to live if we don’t do something.

When Senator McCain and I started this – first started to work with people in the field; the scientists, the business people, the environmentalists, we had a pretty clear picture of what was coming, but very often we had to rely on scientific models and to assume their accuracy in terms of the worst consequences. That’s over. As Senator McCain’s charts and pictures show, we can see with our eyes the effects of global warming already. The planet is warming. The polar ice caps are melting. You could see that with your own eyes. The sea level is rising in costal areas already, and in other areas, the water is diminishing, as in the state – the great state of my cosponsor here and the distinguished occupant of the chair – Arizona. Water is declining. Forest fires are increasing. The evidence is clear that the problem is here and that’s why we have to do something about it. Doing nothing is no longer and option. We have reached a point where the intractable must yield to the inevitable. The evidence that climate change is real and dangerous keeps pouring in and piling up, and what this legislation is all about is pushing, cajoling, convincing the politics to catch up with the science.

Summary of the Climate Stewardship Act of 2005.