How G.O.P. Leaders Came to View Climate Change as Fake Science

[DonViejo]

By CORAL DAVENPORT and ERIC LIPTON JUNE 3, 2017

WASHINGTON — The campaign ad appeared during the presidential contest of 2008. Rapid-fire images of belching smokestacks and melting ice sheets were followed by a soothing narrator who praised a candidate who had stood up to President George W. Bush and “sounded the alarm on global warming.”

It was not made for a Democrat, but for Senator John McCain, who had just secured the Republican nomination.

It is difficult to reconcile the Republican Party of 2008 with the party of 2017, whose leader, President Trump, has called global warming a hoax, reversed environmental policies that Mr. McCain advocated on his run for the White House, and this past week announced that he would take the nation out of the Paris climate accord, which was to bind the globe in an effort to halt the planet’s warming.

The Republican Party’s fast journey from debating how to combat human-caused climate change to arguing that it does not exist is a story of big political money, Democratic hubris in the Obama years and a partisan chasm that grew over nine years like a crack in the Antarctic shelf, favoring extreme positions and uncompromising rhetoric over cooperation and conciliation.

“Most Republicans still do not regard climate change as a hoax,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist who worked for Senator Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign. “But the entire climate change debate has now been caught up in the broader polarization of American politics.”

“In some ways,” he added, “it’s become yet another of the long list of litmus test issues that determine whether or not you’re a good Republican.”

more
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/us/politics/republican-leaders-climate-change.html

[Zorro]

1. Republican politicians embraced the stupidity instead of confronting it intelligently

[SHRED]

4. Intelligence or big campaign donations

They choose the latter.

[ananda]

2. It's all about money, business, Koch bros, and campaign contributions.

The Reeps are bought and paid for -- by interests that do not want
to deal with climate change.

[StevieM]

5. I am not sure I totally agree with you.

A lot of it is ideological. Denying science is inherent to conservatism. And so is identifying the supposedly fraudulent nature of all things they regard as the product of liberalism.

If you had full public funding of all campaigns I don't think too much would change.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. there is no such thing as a "good republican"

[madokie]

7. No truer words have I read on this site

"there is no such thing as a "good republican""


In My Opinion that is

[mn9driver]

6. Good article, worth reading. But it buries the lede.

Republicans were bought by the fossil fuel industry. The article explains that up until 2010, there were still GOP candidates running on a green energy plank.

After 2010, they disappeared. Their campaign funding dried up and they were primaried out of existence.

In today's Republican Party, no one dares to go against the fossil fuel industry line. No one.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Aug 2009: "Most Republican leaders flatly reject prevailing climate science"

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1916282,00.html

"Democratic hubris in the Obama years and a partisan chasm that grew over nine years"? Nah. McCain was the outlier; Bush did his best to pretend there is no such thing as global warming. Kyoto wasn't ratified because it was next to impossible to find a Republican senator who would vote for it.