Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2007

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 18, 2006)

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Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I am sorry that the gentleman from Alaska has raised this point of order because planet Earth is warming. Climate scientists of all persuasions agree that the average surface temperature of the Earth has risen by about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1850, and all agree that the accurately measurable concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has risen from about 280 parts per million in 1850 to over 380 parts per million today. Furthermore, 75 of that 100 parts per million rise has occurred in just the last 40 years.

As a scientist, my attention became totally focused on global warming some 15 years ago by the elegant and powerful measurements of carbon dioxide trapped in ice cores taken as much as 2 miles deep from the great East Antarctica ice sheet.

Those data give a continuous 400,000-year record of concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere at the time the snow that now makes up that great ice sheet fell. Through four successive cycles of deep cold followed by interglacial periods of warming, in the coldest part of each cycle the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere never fell below 190 parts per million, and in the warmest period of each cycle never rose above 280 parts per million.

Suddenly, within the last 40 years, concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has smashed through the 400,000-year maximum of 280 parts per million to a 380-part per million level and continues to rise.

Since 1850, burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas has increased 100 times to produce energy as the world has industrialized to serve the world's more than 6 billion and growing population. The scientists who do climate research understand that much of the ever increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere since 1850 must be attributed to burning those fossil fuels to produce the energy that drives industrialization.

With this chart, let me touch one facet of the climate crisis that we are dealing with. 6.3 billion people, on average, produce four tons of CO2 every year. That comes to a total of slightly more than 25 billion tons of CO2 produced every year. Our 290 million people produce 20 tons per person, and China, with its almost 1.3 billion people in 2003 produced 2.7 tons per person of CO2.

We all know that China is industrializing at a growth rate of 8 to 10 percent per year. China is on track to pass the U.S. as the largest economy in the world in 20 to 25 years, and China is determined to give its people a chance at this high standard of living that we enjoy.

Consider a hypothetical case. If every country except China stayed exactly where they are on population and energy usage, and China alone industrialized to our level, using the same mix of energy sources that the U.S. uses in emitting the same 20 tons of CO2 per person that the U.S. emits, it is a simple calculation to reach a number by taking the 1.3 billion Chinese and multiplying it by the difference between 20 and 2.7, 17.3 additional tons per person, and that comes to 22.5 billion tons of added CO2 over what is presently emitted by the whole world. That is 90 percent as much as is being produced by the whole world today.

The industrialization of China alone would increase by 90 percent the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere and would at least increase the atmospheric CO2 by at least another 100 parts per million.

That simple example tells why climate scientists are so concerned about the lack of effective measures to curb CO2 emissions, to develop new technology, to produce energy that does not produce CO2, to increase efficiency of present technology and, frankly, to conserve energy.

The sense of the Congress resolution on which a point of order has been raised recognizes the looming crisis that human life faces if we continue to produce the energy needed by methods that disrupt the Earth's climate by adding humongous amounts of CO2 into our atmosphere. It is a critical first step in any effort to address global warming.

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