Starting at 5:30 pm Monday, March 10, 2014, more than two dozen U.S. senators took to the floor of the Senate to spend the night talking about the benefits of taking action against climate change and the risks of doing nothing. “There is no Republican destiny or Democratic destiny, no white or black destiny, no poor or rich destiny on this. We are all in this together,” said Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Sens. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ben Cardin of Maryland offered stories of the impact of rising sea levels on their home states and constituents. “We are on the cusp of a climate crisis,” Warren said, “that threatens our health, economy and our world.”
“We can translate climate destruction into a positive,” insisted Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who spoke about fuel cells built in Danbury and other Connecticut cities. He called climate change “implacable, relentless and only we can stop it.” Hawaii’s Sen. Brian Schatz said, “Climate change is real, caused by humans, and it is solvable.”
Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, who flew aboard the space shuttle Columbia in 1986, said when he looked out at the rim of the earth, “You could see what sustains all of life, the atmosphere. I became more than an environmentalist. I saw in its entirety how fragile this ecosystem is.”
Let’s hope we’ll see more discussion in the government chambers leading to action against this oncoming danger to us all.