Why don't more senators and representatives stand up each week the way Sheldon Whitehouse does?

Since October 2011, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has, when the Senate is in session, made a weekly speech about climate change, each of them about 20 minutes long. You may remember that back then, as the 2012 election campaign was just getting under way, most Democratic politicians running for high office, including the highest, were also running away from any mention whatsoever of climate change. Focus groups said this was a loser.

Never mind that none of us can run away from climate change itself. Its effects will be felt in the richest gated communities, no matter how high they build the walls, as well as the lowliest slums. Not felt equally, of course. But there is no escape for anyone.

This week Whitehouse was in the Senate again, as you can see above, speaking to a sparsely filled chamber, calling out one of his colleagues, a leading climate-change denier-liar whose every public comment on the subject ought to be heckled into oblivion. Whitehouse's persistence deserves our sustained applause.  

In an early February interview with Lisa Song of Inside Climate, Whitehouse said in response to a question about what Congress can do:

I think the most obvious and important action would be to put a price on carbon so that it doesn't get favored in the marketplace in a way that is unfair and, in the long run, harmful.

The only way the market really works is if the cost of a product is reflected in the price of the product. Unfortunately the carbon fuel industry has been living in a happy environment for them, in which the costs of carbon pollution that people have to suffer every day don't have to be built into the price of their product. And that gives them an unfair advantage against clean energy alternatives.

The senator should not be such a lone voice in these matters. There are other Senators who agree with what he's saying. We've heard them say similar things on occasion.

But "on occasion" is a problem. Having only one senator regularly, relentlessly making this effort is a problem. And there is no excuse.

Kossacks could take a simple action in this regard. There are 53 Democratic senators and two independents who lean Democratic, plus a few Republicans who are not morons or marionettes in the matter of global warming. If one of these women or men'Democrat, independent, Republican'is your senator, ring them up and ask them to get Sen. Whitehouse let them know each time in advance what day and hour he will speak so they can make an effort to show up and by their presence offer him support.

While you've got them'well, their aide' on the phone suggest that, perhaps, just maybe, since global warming is the crisis of our era, they themselves could start making speeches like Whitehouse's every week. And stop pretending that this is somebody else's problem and that it will go away if they ignore it. Like Whitehouse, be persistent. If, after a couple of weeks, they don't imitate his example or at least show up to support him, call them again. And get others to call. If it takes making a nuisance of yourself, then be one.

Think what a difference might be made if 25 or 40 or 50 senators made this a priority every week. Talk could generate action. But, obviously, it's not a priority of most of them now. We don't even get the talk part.

Delay is Denial.