John Kerry: Climate Change Is an ‘Elementary Truth’ ... Just like Gravity

“If you listen to some people in Washington or elsewhere, you’d think there’s a question about whether climate change really is a problem or whether we really need to respond to it. So stop for a minute and just think about the basics. When an apple falls from a tree, it will drop toward the ground. We know that because of the basic laws of physics. Science tells us that gravity exists, and no one disputes that. Science also tells us that when the water temperature drops below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, it turns to ice. No one disputes that. 

So when science tells us that our climate is changing and humans beings are largely causing that change, by what right do people stand up and just say, ‘Well, I dispute that’ or ‘I deny that elementary truth?’ And yet, there are those who do so. Literally a couple of days ago, I read about some state officials who are actually trying to ban the use of the term ‘climate change’ in public documents because they’re not willing to face the facts …

Future generations will judge our effort not just as a policy failure but as a collective moral failure of historic consequence. And they will want to know how world leaders could possibly have been so blind or so ignorant or so ideological or so dysfunctional and, frankly, so stubborn that we failed to act on knowledge that was confirmed by so many scientists, in so many studies, over such a long period of time, and documented by so much evidence … 

Last year was the warmest of all. And I think if you stop to think about it, it seems that almost every next year becomes one of the hottest on record. And with added heat comes an altered environment. It’s not particularly complicated. I don’t mean to sound haughty it, but think about it for a minute.”