The G.O.P. Can’t Ignore Climate Change. by Jon Huntsman

[elleng]

“TO waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”

These words were spoken by one of the nation’s most passionate conservationists: Republican President Teddy Roosevelt. I admire him for his pragmatism and individualism — foundational traits of the Republican Party. We must summon these qualities and apply them immediately and stoutly to the issue of climate change.

Leading up to the elections of 2008, Republican leaders at all levels were working innovatively across party and ideological divides to address environmental issues, including climate change. They included names like Huckabee, Pawlenty, Schwarzenegger and McCain. I was re-elected with almost 80 percent of the vote in bright red Utah as an environmentally forward-leaning Republican.

But there has been a shift among Republicans on climate change. Last fall, 50 percent said there was solid evidence of rising temperatures on earth, according to the Pew Research Center. But that is down from 2006, when 59 percent of Republicans held that view. . .

So obtuse has become the party’s dialogue on climate change that it’s now been reduced to believing or not believing, as if it were a religious mantra.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/opinion/the-gop-cant-ignore-climate-change.html

[rocktivity]

1. "Jon M. Huntsman Jr....was governor of Utah from 2005 to 2009

and the United States ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011. He was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012."

Getting Huntsman out of town was one of Obama's first acts as President. And with the Christie clown car in a ditch, maybe he's starting to groom himself for 2016?


rocktivity[/b[]

[Cartoonist]

2. religious mantras

We all know how true those are. Coming from a Mormon, I'm not sure exactly what he's saying here. I'm glad to hear he recognizes climate change and human culpability. Still would never vote for him.

[Prophet 451]

3. Yes, they can

And they will. Like Canute, they'll be denying even as they're swallowed by teh rising waters.

[blkmusclmachine]

4. Huntsman, the only sane Republican left.

[Jefferson23]

5. He was the only Republican with a brain who ran for POTUS and they hated him.

The odds anyone in his party will listen to him are not good, but I give him credit for trying.

[seabeckind]

6. Ignore? What a poor choice of words.

The gop isn't ignoring it.

Far from it. They know exactly what it means. People like the Kochs get all their wealth from fossil fuels. Many of our states get a big chunk of their income (the part that falls off the tracks) from fossil fuels. The cold states depend it to survive. The fracking industry needs water and they don't care if the people who live there can't anymore (all to the good cause then they won't have pesky complaints about taste and flammability).

They're not ignoring it...lord no. They have it foremost on their agenda.

It's just a different agenda.

[smallcat88]

7. The rise of extremism

in this country is why more Republicans are denying climate change. The Koch's fueled the rise of the tea party for this purpose - to feed ignorance so they don't have to pay for poisoning the environment and can continue to reap massive fossil fuel profits. The threat of being challenged by ultra-conservatives on the far right has had Republicans running scared. And the general ignorance of Fox viewers who believe what they're told without looking anything up and judging the evidence for themselves (too much thinking involved) just helps to push the entire party further and farther in the wrong direction.
I've been a lifelong Independent - but in the past few years the extremism on the right just keeps pushing me further to the left. I'm thinking about registering as a Democrat and the denial about climate change is a primary reason.

[hatrack]

8. No, Jon, they can, do, and will ignore climate change for decades to come.

They'll deny it with every fiber of their pustulent little souls.

They'll just keep on lying about the observable, objective and undeniable truth until the rising seas fill their foul-smelling pieholes, and then the last intelligible sound will be a gurgling noise interpreted by those on slightly higher ground as either "Freedom!" or "Reagan!"