Republican’s Anti-Science Stance on Global Warming
The Green Market Oracle
In an effort to pander to the Tea Party, Republican contenders are towingthe climate denial line ahead of the midterm elections. An influx ofRepublicans means that both chambers will be polluted by moreanti-science skeptics of human-induced global warming.
The factsare hard to refute, but where there is a will there is a way. Althoughsome Republicans will concede that the climate is warming, they do notattribute it to human activity.
Gov. John Boozman, Arkansas explained it this way, “I think that we’ve got perhaps climate change going on. The question is what’s causing it. Is man causing it,or, you know, is this a cycle that happens throughout the years,throughout the ages. And you can look back some of the previous timeswhen there was no industrialization, you had these different ages, iceages, and things warming and things. That’s the question.”
Despite Republican efforts to deny, the fact remains that the vast majority ofscientists and scientific literature recognizes that humans are causingglobal warming. While 97% of climate experts agree that humans are causing global warming,incredibly, GOP Senate candidates unanimously disagree with thescientists.
Of all the Republicans vying for the 37 Senate seats in the 2010 election, only one, Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware, supported strong climate action. Now that Castle has beenresoundingly defeated by Tea Party candidate Christine (not a witch)O’Donnell, the GOP slate is unanimous in its opposition to a greeneconomy.
Despite the overwhelming body of evidence, SharronAngle, the Tea Party candidate running against Sen. Harry Reid inNevada, described climate change legislation as being “based on anunscientific hysteria over the man-caused global warming hoax.”
It is not only the candidates spawned by the Tea Party that are making absurd statements. Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri said, “there isn’t any real science to say we are altering the climate path of the earth.” And Rep. Rob Portman of Ohio added, “when you analyze all the data, there is a warming trend according to science, but the jury is out on the degree of how much ismanmade.”
Another Tea Party candidate, Florida’s Marco Rubio echoed the same sentiments: I don’t think there’s any scientificevidence to justify it, he insisted, while also deriding his opponent,Charlie Crist, as a “believer in man-made global warming.”
Thefull slate of GOP candidates deny the existence of man made climatechange. Some Republican’s vying for office have even claimed that global warming is good for us. Last June, Ron Johnson claimed that global warming saved Wisconsin from turning into aglacier, saying he was “glad there’s global warming … We’d be standing on top of a 200-foot thick glacier.”
Wisconsin’s , Ron Johnson is a Republican candidate for US Senate, he has said uncategorically,“I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climatechange,” Johnson also called scientists and all those who believe in human causes ofclimate change, “crazy” and called the climate change theory “lunacy.”He achieved the pinnacle of climate change stupidy when he attributedthis summer’s flooding and forest fires to "sunspot activity."
GOP Senate Candidate John Raese is no better, he promotes a pre-industrialvision of science and he blames volcanoes for global warming. Raese has said he has “zero” [trust that] human activity is contributing to climate change.”
Denying anthropogenic climate change is a refutation of reality, and blamingvolcanoes and sunspots for global warming is as ridiculous as Palin and Limbaugh blaming the BP oil spill in the gulf of Mexico on environmentalists.
These Republican candidates would be laughable if they did not have tractionwith the American public. The midterm elections are fast approaching and Republican lies are too dangerous to be ignored.
Richard Matthews is a consultant, sustainable investor, writer and owner of The Green Market Oracle, a leading sustainable business blog that covers the convergence of sustainable capitalism and the global environment.The Green Market is one of the most comprehensive resources for information and tools on sustainability. Follow The Green Market's twitter feed and see the Facebook Fan Page.
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