Salon Takes Toughest Question Of The Year: Which GOP Candidate Is The Worst On Climate Issues?

[hatrack]

Ah, for it to be several weeks ago, when I was weighing the merits of the top Democratic candidates’ climate platforms and wondering whether Hillary Clinton was green enough. The GOP field, in comparison to that — and in comparison to any rational world in which people refrain from quibbling with the scientific consensus on issues they don’t understand — is a hot pile of climate-denying garbage.

Their reluctance to take action on one of the most pressing issues of our time takes many forms, from shutting their ears and singing “lalalalalala” (metaphorically, of course) any time the topic comes up to tiptoeing up to the edge of admitting we might have a problem here … and then praying the Koch brothers didn’t overhear. The truth is, no one on the right is up to the challenge of averting the “severe, pervasive and irreversible” consequences of greenhouse gas emissions. But as the primaries heat up, here’s our guide to where they stand.

Climate change is happening, and I will help drive the “substantial and sustained” emissions cuts scientists say are necessary to fight it:

None of them.

EDIT

Hahahahaha climate change isn’t happening

Ted Cruz: The Texas senator and Ivy Leaguer will take any of your reasonable and scientifically sound assertions about climate change and spit back a bunch of nonsense that proves only he, in the words of California Gov. Jerry Brown, “betokens such a level of ignorance and a direct falsification of scientific data” that it’s “shocking.”

Donald Trump: The celebrity candidate doesn’t just believe that climate change isn’t happening. He believes that “any and all weather events are used by the GLOBAL WARMING HOAXSTERS to justify higher taxes to save our planet!”

Ben Carson: The planet’s always heating up, or cooling down, so this entire conversation is “irrelevant.”

Rick Perry: It’s not that the former Texas governor is a scientist (he’s not, he tells us), but still, “calling CO2 a pollutant is doing a disservice [to] the country, and I believe a disservice to the world.”

EDIT

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/18/what_scientific_consensus_a_complete_guide_to_climate_denial_and_the_2016_gop_candidates/

[RiverLover]

1. And this is exactly why Hillary doesn't have to concern herself with being heckled by activists...

She is not the person who will lead us in the changes we need to make to try to slow down climate change, but its irrelevant if she wins the nomination because any of the rethugs will be worse.

The excerpt below spells out the very, very painful truth. (Although the first sentence here makes no sense to me. In the primaries, she should be very concerned. Its only if she's the nominated one.) Anyways~

...As I explained Wednesday, though, the unfortunate reality for climate activists is that Hillary doesn’t need to be overly concerned about them in the primary, since she doesn’t have to worry about them in the general election. Their legitimate fears about what a climate science–denying Republican president would do will be a much greater motivating force on Election Day than their doubts about Clinton ever could be. Hillary knows this, and that’s one big reason for her more moderate, let’s-not-move-too-fast position. Thursday’s town hall, however, suggests that the climate crowd might not sit by quietly as Clinton says the country can’t curb domestic drilling until it has a new, comprehensive green energy policy in place, while at the same time she remains frustratingly vague on what such a policy would look like....

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/07/16/hillary_clinton_got_heckled_by_climate_activists_at_a_new_hampshire_town.html