{"id":6972,"date":"2013-11-29T08:11:44","date_gmt":"2013-11-29T13:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/?p=6972"},"modified":"2013-12-07T10:30:53","modified_gmt":"2013-12-07T15:30:53","slug":"year-4-month-11-day-29-zzzzzzzzzzzzzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/year-4-month-11-day-29-zzzzzzzzzzzzzz\/","title":{"rendered":"Year 4, Month 11, Day 29: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ……"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sheldon Whitehouse, mensch<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

In the annals of congressional oratory, it didn\u2019t rival Sen. Rand Paul\u2019s 13-hour filibuster in March over drone policy. But last Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse marked a major milestone of his own \u2014 and one welcomed by environmentalists \u2014 when he delivered his 50th weekly address on climate change from the Senate floor.<\/p>\n

Whitehouse gave his first \u201cTime to Wake Up\u201d address in April 2012. He has returned to the floor every week the Senate is in session to stand before C-Span cameras and shine the spotlight on an issue he says has been alarmingly neglected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am here for the 50th time to urge my colleagues to wake up to what carbon pollution is doing to our atmosphere and our oceans,\u201d he said at the outset of his speech. \u201cWhy do I do this? First because it\u2019s real, it\u2019s very real, it\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then turned to charts at his side to present evidence of increases in Earth\u2019s surface temperatures.<\/p>\n

In an interview before his speech, Whitehouse explained what motivated him a year and a half ago to launch the approximately 15-minute climate talks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to raise the profile of climate change. We had basically stopped talking about it and the climate-change deniers\u2019 point of view really doesn\u2019t last very well in the daylight,\u201d he said. \u201cIt shrivels up under scrutiny. It does better in the dark and we were, I thought, cooperating by allowing the dark to shroud the issue.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Versions of this letter have had remarkable success over the past year or so. November 18:<\/p>\n

Two hundred and thirty-eight years ago the Minutemen woke to a midnight alarm and became part of our nation’s history. Responding to the calls of Paul Revere, these patriots helped usher in a new nation, conceived in liberty \u2014 while powerfully demonstrating the usefulness of early-alert systems. Now, in the face of a craven political establishment and a lazy media, even more urgent warnings are coming from the world’s climatologists \u2014 and from a few unbought politicians like Sheldon Whitehouse.<\/p>\n

The accelerating greenhouse effect, if unchecked, will bring incredible damage to our civilization: disrupted agriculture, rising sea levels, huge loss of biodiversity, and extreme storms like Haiyan (Filipinos don’t need reminders of the dangers of climate change). <\/p>\n

While the public’s attention is diverted by phony scandals and nubile starlets, a latter-day Revere tries to wake us. Will we listen to Senator Whitehouse \u2014 or punch the snooze button once again? <\/p>\n

Warren Senders<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Published.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sheldon Whitehouse, mensch: In the annals of congressional oratory, it didn\u2019t rival Sen. Rand Paul\u2019s 13-hour filibuster in March over drone policy. But last Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse marked a major milestone of his own \u2014 and one welcomed by environmentalists \u2014 when he delivered his 50th weekly address on climate change from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,44],"tags":[980,253,641],"class_list":["post-6972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-politics","tag-analogies","tag-denialists","tag-heroes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6972"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7033,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6972\/revisions\/7033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.warrensenders.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}