Sachs: ‘Big Oil Money’ ‘Bought the Senate,’ Blocking Action on Climate Change

WAGNER: “Dr. Sachs, Hurricane Sandy cost this area $71 billion of damage. We of course don’t know what the winter storm Juno is going to do. Just with flight delays — it seems like framing this changing climate in an economic context is a pretty powerful way to get people to start carrying a little bit more about the changes that are happening to the Earth.”
SACHS: “Of course, that’s right. There’s a simple cost-benefit analysis that we are making a terrible deal right now in risking massive, massive losses when the cost of getting the climate system safer would be very small indeed. It is just opposed by very strong vested interests. To keep this in perspective for everybody, I expect that most people heard by now that 2014 was the warmest year on the planet’s instrument history. In other words, going back to around 1870 when we’ve been measuring the temperatures using a thermometers and other instruments. 2014 is the warmest in history. The trends and the dangers and disasters all over the world are clear whether it is droughts, massive flooding, these kind of extreme storms, the storm that hit the Philippines one after another after another of those giant mega storms. It is vast and getting larger, but we have this powerful oil industry that has been fighting this. They bought the Senate unfortunately. The Republicans just voted down science again last week. They were given the opportunity to reflect on the most basic science that human activity significantly contributes to climate change, and the Republicans voted against that 49-5 in the Republican party. They’re just on the take with the big oil money. 
WAGNER: “Yeah, it is an ironic juxtaposition that the vote that happened last week in Washington and what is happening this week on the northeast coast.”