President Obama went to Paris this weekend to meet with about 140 other world leaders. They are meeting to try and find a solution to global climate change -- which is reaching a critical level. This year, for the first time in recorded history, the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere reached 400 ppm. It is now beyond question that the global climate is warming, and that warming is already starting to have serious consequences -- beyond question to everyone but Republicans.
While the president is in Paris trying to find a solution to the climate crisis, the Republican officials back here at home are busy trying to go backwards on the issue. House Republicans on Tuesday took up two resolutions passed by the Senate last month that would kill the Clean Power Plan recently introduced by the president. On basically a party-line vote, the House passed both resolutions -- the votes being 242 to 180, and 235 to 188.
The resolutions now go to the president, and he will veto them. But the important part of this is that the Republicans have shown they are still going to try and block or kill any efforts to combat global climate change. Part of this is that they don't want their corporate buddies in the oil and gas industry (and in other industries) to have to spend money to stop polluting and clean up their activities. But there's an even worse part -- they are also playing to their grossly misinformed base voters.
A new YouGov Poll (taken between November 19th and 23rd of a random national sample of 2,000 adults, with a margin of error of 3.1 points) shows that majorities of the general public (60%), Democrats (82%), and Independents (56%) understand that global climate change is happening and is due to human activity (misuse and overuse of fossil fuels).
It is the Republicans that are out-of-step with the rest of America. Only about 35% of Republicans believe that. The rest either believe that global climate change is not happening, or is not due to human activity. And a huge 67% of Republicans say global climate change has been exaggerated, and is not nearly as serious as has been stated (by 95% to 97% of the world's scientists).
This is troubling because it means they will probably nominate only primary candidates that are global climate change deniers -- and that means nothing can be done to solve this crisis if they hold on to either the House or the Senate (or both). And that means, if the Republicans do well in the 2016 election, we will be leaving our descendants a world much worse than the one we inherited -- maybe even one that is largely (or completely) uninhabitable.
