U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) took to the Senate floor 7 May to warn his colleagues of the threat the warming climate and plastic pollution poses to the world’s oceans and fisheries.
“In the 10 minutes that it takes me to give this speech, the oceans will absorb 4,000 Hiroshima detonations' worth of heat,” Whitehouse said. “That is why seawater off the Florida Keys hit jacuzzi temperatures. That is why measuring devices along our coasts show a foot of sea level rise already. That is why fish species are moving about and fisheries are collapsing. That is why the world's coral reefs are bleaching out – over 80 percent of the world's reefs hit in the last ocean heating surge caused by fossil fuel.”
Whitehouse’s remarks come shortly after his trip to Busan, South Korea, for the tenth annual Our Ocean Conference, a gathering of international stakeholders to discuss marine conservation and threats to global waters. Whitehouse was the only representative of the U.S. government at the conference; U.S. President Donald Trump did not send any federal officials to participate in discussions.
“I was the entirety of the United States delegation. You’re looking at it. One-hundred percent of the entire U.S. delegation. Ordinarily, many executive branch officials come. In this case, not one executive branch official attended from the United States. Of course not: this administration is nothing more than hirelings of the fossil fuel industry, and the conference – of course – addressed the harm that fossil fuel emissions are doing in the oceans, and the harm that petrochemical plastics are doing in the oceans,” Whitehouse said.
Under the second Trump administration, the U.S. government has severely curtailed spending on climate-related programs …
