Stand Up to Climate Change Deniers

At least climate change is now part of the national conversation. President Obama announced the Clean Power Plan, and Hillary Clinton pushed for solar, while grassroots organizations–and me–began to explore soil regeneration programs as a way to limit greenhouse gases. But here’s what the GOP leaders have said about climate change:

“There is no such thing as global warming.’ -Rick Santorum

“It’s absolutely and utterly untrue.” -Rand Paul

“Hoax.” -Donald Trump

“I’m not a scientist.” -Marco Rubio

“I’m a skeptic. I’m not a scientist.” -Jeb Bush

“One contrived phony mess.” -Rick Perry

“There’s been no warming whatsoever.” -Ted Cruz

“I don’t want to overreact.” -John Kasich

Pretty amazing when you see them all stacked up like that, right? Meanwhile, California Governor Jerry Brown recently sent an open letter to GOP governors asking for a stance on climate change: “Longer fire seasons, extreme weather and severe droughts aren’t on the horizon, they’re all here – and here to stay,” he said. “Given the challenge and the stakes, my question for you is simple: What are you going to do about it?”

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson shared the best summation of the situation that I’ve seen so far:

“One of the great tragedies of modern society is that we have politicians cherry-picking science in the interests of their own social, cultural, political and religious belief systems, and that’s the beginning of the end of an informed democracy…If your belief is not based in objective truth then maybe you should not be creating legislation based on it.”

Mic drop.