Whitehouse: ‘I will not ignore effects of climate change’

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) blasted oil and coal companies for ignoring local effects of climate change on states’ economies.

{mosads}In a YouTube video posted to upworthy.com, Whitehouse took on oil and coal lobbyists and climate change deniers.

“What I cannot accept is that coal and oil jobs are the only jobs that are at stake when we discuss acting on climate change,” Whitehouse said in January during an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. “Not when fishermen in Rhode Island are no longer catching winter flounder because Narragansett Bay is 3 or 4 degrees warmer.

“Not when we have the kind of impacts we are seeing throughout the economy,” he continued.