The US Senate is not a crowded, rambunctious place like Britain’s House of Commons or other more lively legislative bodies around the world. Members are accustomed to speaking among row after row of empty desks, unheckled by absent colleagues. This has not deterred Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from stepping into the arena to champion urgent causes.
For almost nine years the Democrat took to the Senate floor every week the chamber was in session to demand that attention be paid to the climate crisis. He retired the “Time to Wake Up” series last year after 279 speeches only to revive it again this year.
