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120360065
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Coral Bleaching - Al's Statement
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120360065
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Coral Bleaching - Al's Statement
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Records of the Council on Environmental Quality (Clinton Administration)
Kathleen McGinty's Files
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FOIA Number: 2012-0769-F
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
Subgroup/Office of Origin:
Council on Environmental Quality
Series/Staff Member:
Kathleen (Katie) McGinty
Subseries:
OA/ID Number:
2896
FolderID:
Folder Title:
Coral Bleaching - Al's Statement
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Row:
Section:
Shelf:
Position:
S
61
6
3
2
Opening Remarks of
SENATOR AL GORE
Commerce Committee Hearing on
CORAL BLEACHING and GLOBAL WARMING
October 11, 1990
Good morning. I'd like to welcome you all to our hearing this
morning and thank our Chairman, Senator Hollings, for providing us
with the opportunity to explore the phenomena of coral bleaching and
global warming -- subjects that I believe are deserving of our
immediate attention. I look forward to learning about the latest
developments in these fields, and I am sincerely grateful to our
distinguished witnesses for taking time to share with us their
observations and some of the results of their research.
Our attention turns to these issues in, I believe, a very timely
fashion. As we will learn in greater detail from the scientists that
join us today, the "news from the field" is alarming. Having suffered
repeated bouts of bleaching, coral reefs are beginning to show signs
of exhaustion. To you and me, "bleaching" is like starvation. In the
early 1980's, the reefs held on during times when they were without
food, and were even able to rally back when their food supply was
replenished. It seems, however, that their fight has gone on one
round too many. Stressed and fatigued, the corals are now dying --
they no longer seem able to spring back from their injuries.
I believe that there is a profound message for us in the
experience of the corals. These animals live "on the edge" in the
biosphere. Acutely sensitive to many types of disturbances, the reefs
act as a finely tuned radar system, and through some change -- for
example in their color -- they will signal even relatively mild
problems. Today, with their deaths, they are reacting in the most
extreme manner, and it is at our peril that we turn a deaf ear to the
alarm they are sounding. Coral reefs are some of the richest marine
ecological systems in the world, and while they may best be
appreciated for their decorative beauty, they play a key role in the
marine ecosystems. The reefs provide shelter to a vast array of
marine life, and, by breaking waves that pound the beach, they provide
essential protection to people living in coastal communities in the
United States and abroad.
But what is killing the corals? Our first panel of scientists
S
have labored long and hard to try to solve this riddle. Although
they've been working with grossly inadequate resources, they have
discovered an important clue: they have found that the frequency and
severity of bleaching bouts is exactly correlated with unusually warm
ocean temperatures. This discovery no doubt takes us closer to
understanding the coral bleaching phenomenon. But really, to identify
hot ocean water as the culprit is only to raise another question: why
is the ocean getting hotter?
It is my hope that our second panel of experts will provide us
with some provocative information in this regard. I realize that our
format today is somewhat unusual, and that it may not be immediately
obvious as to why we have asked atmospheric climatologists to join us
in a discussion of an event that is happening in the oceans. But, it
is becoming increasingly clear that the oceans and the atmosphere are
inextricably interconnected. We know for example, that the oceans
absorb heat from the atmosphere and that the reefs in particular play
a critically important role in offsetting the buildup of carbon
dioxide gas in the atmosphere.
Similarly, we know that our emissions of carbon dioxide have
been increasing at an exponential rate, and that the demise of the
coral reefs has occurred at the same time that we have witnessed five
of the hottest years on record. Is there a link here? Does the death
of the corals indicate that we are reaching a critical limit in the
earth's natural ability to absorb greenhouse gases? We cannot, of
course, answer these questions today. But in hearing the latest from
the oceanographers and the climatologists, I believe that we can take
an important step forward in identifying some of the pieces of the
puzzle.