Bob Casey Jr.

“ It is a question I have asked and so many others have asked over the course of many months in this Senate and many years. I spent, as did a lot of my colleagues, many hours talking with what we might call stakeholders. People in the manufacturing field, people who might own businesses, labor unions, environmentalists, scientists—all the way down the list of people and groups that have an interest. They are all determined that a national climate change program that we develop to combat it must accomplish a number of basic goals. ”

“ So in just about 35 years the percent of the Earth that had drought has doubled. That alone should tell us what the stakes are. We know what drought leads to. It leads to poverty and hunger and starvation and death and darkness.
We know it from our recent history, the catastrophic storms and flooding, Katrina being an example of that; changes in habitat that threaten species and the potential of a mini ice age in northern Europe if melting ice sheets disrupt ocean currents; major ecological changes translating into major sociopolitical changes. ”

“ We must not do any less than what the scientists tell us we need to do to prevent the catastrophic changes in the Earth's atmosphere.
The second bill I am cosponsoring, the Low Carbon Economy Act, introduced by Senators Bingaman and Specter—I applaud them for their work in putting together a comprehensive and detailed piece of legislation. Many of the things we will debate in this Senate will be critically important to my home State of Pennsylvania. Any climate change program must include a number of things: First of all, a detailed proposal for a cap-and-trade program for carbon credits ”

“ The people have a right to clean air, pure water, and to the preservation of the natural scenic, historic, and esthetic values of the environment. Pennsylvania's public natural resources are the common property of all the people, including generations yet to come. ”

“ We know various committees in this Senate—the Foreign Relations Committee being one—are dealing with this issue as well, focusing on the implications of global warming to national security and the military readiness of our troops.
There are so many examples. Even in Darfur, a terrible horror that we see unfolding every day—part of that was caused by changes in our environment. Drought caused people to move into new areas, causing conflict. ”

“ The evidence—rising average temperatures, melting glaciers, shifts in migratory bird patterns—is telling us something. It is telling us that we are failing in our duties as stewards of God's creation. ”