Voices

“Each of us took turns over the past 43 years running the Environmental Protection Agency. We served Republican presidents, but we have a message that transcends political affiliation: the United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.”

William D. Ruckelshaus, Lee M. Thomas, William K. Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman
from “A Republican Case for Climate Action,” New York Times, Aug. 1, 2013


“I’m going to tell you something that my Republican friends are loath to admit out loud: climate change is real. I’m a moderate Republican, fiscally conservative; a fan of small government, accountability, self-empowerment and sound science. I am not a climate scientist. I’m a Penn State meteorologist, and the weather maps I’m staring at are making me very uncomfortable.”

Local meteorologist Paul Douglas
from “A Message From a Republican Meteorologist
on Climate Change,” Huffington Post, Mar. 29, 2012


“Climate change poses another significant challenge for the United States and the world at large. As greenhouse gas emissions increase, sea levels are rising, average global temperatures are increasing, and severe weather patterns are accelerating.”

from Pentagon Quadrennial Defense Review 2014, p. 8 (Note: this is a large PDF file)


“An overwhelming majority of the American public, including half of Republicans, support government action to curb global warming, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times, Stanford University and the nonpartisan environmental research group Resources for the Future… the poll also found that two-thirds of Americans said they were more likely to vote for political candidates who campaign on fighting climate change. They were less likely to vote for candidates who questioned or denied the science that determined that humans caused global warming.”

“Most Republicans Say They Back Climate Action, Poll Finds”, by Coral Davenport and Marjorie Connelly
New York Times, Jan. 30, 2015


“Global warming and the associated climate change represent a significant challenge for Americans. …For the purposes of this paper, the Task Force assumes that global warming is occurring. We believe that there is ample evidence in support of this assumption in a variety of other reports and studies, so we have decided not to focus on the scientific aspects of global warming. We believe the time has come for regulators to work with the insurance industry to thoroughly examine the impact of climate change issues on the insurance industry and make necessary regulatory changes and raise important issues in order to protect consumers and ensure a vibrant insurance market as we move into the future.”

from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners
Climate Change and Global Warming Task Force white paper
The Potential Impact of Climate Change on Insurance Regulation, 2008, p. 1. (Note: this is a large PDF file)


“An analysis of changes to the climate that occur over several decades suggests that these changes are happening faster than historical levels and are starting to speed up. The Earth is now entering a period of changing climate that will likely be faster than what’s occurred naturally over the last thousand years”

from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL),
“News Center: The climate is starting to change faster,”
by Susan Bauer and Mary Beckman, March 9, 2015


“The global land and ocean surface temperature for December 2018 was the second highest since global records began in 1880 at 0.86°C (1.55°F) above the 20th century average. This value trails behind the record year 2015 by 0.27°C (0.49°F).”

from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Global Climate Report 2018

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“…I have called out the network of fossil-fuel propaganda that seeks to mire this Congress in phony, manufactured doubt…Climate change threatens our strategic interests, our military readiness, and our domestic security in many ways. It is a serious national security issue.”

As delivered on the Senate floor by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse,
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/climate-change-and-national-security


“Net zero energy installations are defined as projects that produce as much renewable energy on site as they [the military] use on an annual basis, and may include conservation and efficiency efforts in addition to renewable energy generation.”

“Military Renewables Plan: A Bioenergy Booster”, Biomassmagazine.com, May 22, 2012.


“A new study released by NASA provides further evidence that greenhouse gases are the main driving force behind global warming.”

NASA Study Says Global Energy Is Out Of Balance”, by Andrew Webster, Good Clean Tech, Jan. 31, 2012.


“The tropics and the Middle East in summer are in danger of becoming practically uninhabitable by the end of the century if business-as-usual fossil fuel emissions continue, because wet bulb temperature could approach the level at which the human body is unable to cool itself even under well-ventilated outdoor conditions,”

“Regional Climate Change and National Responsibilities”, by Dr. James Hansen, Climatologist and Adjunct Professor, Columbia University Earth Institute, Huffington Post, December 6, 2017


“’Climate change is likely to be one of the global mega-trends impacting sovereign creditworthiness, in most cases negatively,’ says S&P, in its report. It’s a view generally supported by Lloyd’s of London.”

“Rift Widening Between Energy and Insurance Industries Over Climate Change”, by Ken Silverstein, Forbes Magazine, May 18, 2014.


“We’ve endured tyrants and outlasted perverse ideologies. Climate change is different. As a team of scientists recently pointed out in the journal Nature Climate Change, the physical shifts we’re inflicting on the planet will ‘extend longer than the entire history of human civilization thus far.’”

“How Extreme Weather is Shrinking the Planet”, by Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, November 16, 2018


“’Safeguard Creation,’ he said. ‘Because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!’”

Pope Francis: Causing Climate Change Is a ‘Sin’”, by TomP, dailykos.com, May 21, 2014

To read Pope Francis’ 2015 Encyclical, see
Encyclical Letter
Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis
on Care for Our Common Home


“Climate change is the human rights challenge of our time. We can no longer continue feeding our addiction to fossil fuels as if there is no tomorrow, for there will be no tomorrow,” Tutu said in a video address.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu: Archbishop Tutu Calls for End Fossil Fuel Era, YouTube, September 18, 2014


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Our future depends on it.