GOP Climate Denial Is Way Out of the U.S. Mainstream

The Party’s stance is out of touch with businesses, the public, scientists, and many GOP voters.

The national GOP seems to be locked into climate change denial. This stance puts the GOP leadership increasingly alone. They’re out of touch with the business community, the public, scientists, and even many of their own voters.

Out of Touch with the Business Community

  • In 2015, Shell and BP called for international cooperation to achieve the 2 ° temperature target.
  • Even Rex W. Tillerson, ExxonMobil’s chief executive and Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, has “repeatedly said that he would support putting a price on carbon as long as it was ‘revenue neutral.’”
  • In an open letter, hundreds of businesses urged Trump to stick with the Paris Agreement.
  • The list of companies signing the open letter included DuPont, eBay, Nike, Unilever, Levi Strauss & Co., Starbucks, General Mills, Hewlett Packard and Hilton.

Out of Touch with the Public

  • Last March, two-thirds of Americans agreed that climate change is caused by humans.
  • According to Gallup, that’s the highest number since the start of the century.
  • Forty percent say they view climate change as a serious threat, the highest since Obama took office.
  • In another tracking poll, Gallup found that 60% of the public favor conservation by consumers over development of more oil, gas, and coal resources.
  • And by the same percentage, the public favored prioritizing the environment over energy needs.
  • A University of Texas poll shows that millennials are even more concerned, with 90% believing in the reality of climate change.

Out of Touch with Republicans

  • The March Gallup poll on climate change showed that 40% of Republicans now agree that climate change is happening and caused by humans.
  • A post-election survey of a thousand voters by the Conservative Energy Network showed heavy majorities of Republicans favoring more use of solar and wind.
  • The same poll showed strong support for increased solar (76%) and wind (62%) in the Deep South,
  • And voters who considered themselves “somewhat conservative” still favored more solar (60%) and more wind (57%).

Out of Touch with Scientists

  • The American Physical Society, on behalf of the nation’s physicists, says: “If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
  • The American Chemistry Society says: “comprehensive scientific assessments of our current and potential future climates clearly indicate that climate change is real, largely attributable to emissions from human activities, and potentially a very serious problem.”
  • The National Academy of Science endorses the need for action on climate change.
  • So does the UK’s Royal Society, as do the scientific organizations of Russia, China, Japan, Brazil, Italy, Germany, India, and Canada.

Isn’t it time for the GOP to stop burying its head in the sand and confront the reality of climate change?

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Reader Comments

3 Replies to “GOP Climate Denial Is Way Out of the U.S. Mainstream”

  1. And on top of everything Dan’s cited, consider the latest survey results from Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communications:

    Big voter majorities in the U.S. want

    – The U.S. in on Paris,
    – Unilateral GHG reductions,
    – Business sector,Trump, & Congress to do more on climate
    – A carbon tax… (revenue neutral)

    Key Findings are here: http://ow.ly/953h3078noi

  2. ONE ANSWER TO: Can We Adapt in Time?

    Will and Ariel Durant warned us about failures by political and intellectual leaders that keep destroying civilizations because history proves our leaders keep failing to meet the challenges of change.

    Socrates tried to teach us about morality and truth and kept asking questions that cost him his life because of corrupt political leaders, and we still fail to achieve a culture of truth and morality.

    Confucius warned us that learning without thinking is fruitless, and to think without learning is dangerous
    Over 1000 Christian denominations constantly threaten Christianity, in spite of the fact that Jesus warned us about false prophets and tried to teach us about beatitudes and laws in his Sermon on the Mount, but even the Golden Rule that is constantly overruled by nations and peoples due to circumstances.

    Our founding fathers championed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but our politicians keep subverting them
    Lincoln supposed “you can’t fool all the people all the time,” but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country
    Churchill and FDR united the world to protect the human race from tyranny, but we are still frequently overwhelmed by the fact of life that tyranny rules more often than not.

    Eisenhower warned us about the power of money that dominates scholars and prevents us from saving ourselves from our greed but we marginalize his grave Farewell Address warning at our increasing peril anyway
    Einstein warned us that our technology threatens our humanity.

    Pauling was marginalized by the academic establishment because he championed Peace and exposed the moral failures of politicians, scientists and academics that are dominated by greed and the military-industrial complex that Ike also warned us about, preventing us from protecting and perpetuating an acceptable quality of life for the human race.

    Johnson produced civil rights law but failed to prevent an unnecessary war that destroyed over a million lives
    Us/Them dichotomies are continuously destroying the human race with never-ending wars, hate and increasingly out of control chaos.

    Thus we are proving we cannot adapt in time because we have not evolved enough and our institutions keep failing to learn from or ignore the lessons of history, unless our intellectuals can implement a way before the Keeling Curve becomes our epitaph.

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About Dan

Dan Farber has written and taught on environmental and constitutional law as well as about contracts, jurisprudence and legislation. Currently at Berkeley Law, he has al…

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About Dan

Dan Farber has written and taught on environmental and constitutional law as well as about contracts, jurisprudence and legislation. Currently at Berkeley Law, he has al…

READ more

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