Politico’s Darren Samuelsohn reports that many Republican candidates this year boldly proclaim their skepticism about the dangers of global warming:
Fueled by anti-Obama rhetoric and news articles purportedly showing scientists manipulating their own data, Republicans running for the House, Senate and governor’s mansions have gotten bolder in stating their doubts over the well-established link between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.
For example:
Ron Johnson, running against Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, is the latest in a line of Republicans to take a shot at the validity of global warming.
“I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change,” Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Monday. “It’s not proven by any stretch of the imagination.”
Johnson told the newspaper that the climate change theory was “lunacy” and blamed changes in the Earth’s temperature to “sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time.”
Similar remarks have been heard from GOP candidates in all parts of the country even as mainstream climate scientists defend their work from a steady line of attack.
How refreshing. It was less than a year ago that even one of conservatives’ favorite governors (to be), New Jersey’s Chris Christie, ran a campaign committed to principles such as “global warming justice,” “saying no to coal,” and even more subsidizing of inefficient renewable energy projects, especially solar. That used to be the norm for all candidates; no more.