Effects of global warming

On October 30, 2003, for the first time ever, the U.S. Senate voted
on a bill, S. 139, to restrict our energy use to slow global warming.
Sponsored by John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D­
Conn.), it went on to defeat, 55–43.

The narrow margin of defeat for S. 139 guarantees three things:
global warming is politically hot, President Bush's environmental
record will be an important part of the 2004 campaign for his defeat,
and S. 139 will never go away. On Halloween 2003, McCain vowed
to reintroduce the bill in 2004, promising a year-over-year fight
until it passes, just as he did with his “Campaign Finance Reform”
legislation.

In preparation for the vote on S. 139, and for years previous,
McCain and others concerned about global warming assembled a
written record in numerous House and Senate hearings on the sub­
ject, and in other venues. So much so, that a pretty decent campaign
speech could be constructed by merely concatenating the recorded
wisdom of our Solons on the subject of global warming. Think of
the following as a generic campaign speech in the 2004 election
cycle. (Each of the following statements is a direct quote from the
sources noted.)

Global warming is a serious threat. There is overwhelming evi­
dence that increasing amounts of carbon dioxide and other green­
house gases are heating up the earth's climate and that inaction
could be disastrous (1).

President Bush speaks of an axis of terror, but there is another
axis of evil in the world: poverty and ignorance, disease and environ­
mental disorder (2). The Bush Administration ignores the terror of
environmental peril and denies the reality of 2,500 United Nations
scientists who tell us that unless we find ways to stop global warm­
ing, sea levels could swell up to 35 feet, submerging millions of
homes under our present day oceans (3). The crisis in climate change

The temperature of planet earth has been on the rise due to the excessive release of carbon dioxide and various harmful gases into the atmosphere. These gases come from cars, factories, industries, air conditioners, etc. This leads to a phenomenon known as global warming.