72 Percent of Republican Senators Are Climate Deniers
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2015/01/republican-climate-denial-caucus
72 Percent of Republican Senators Are Climate Deniers
—By Jeremy Schulman
| Sat Jan. 10, 2015 6:00 AM EST
On Thursday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered a simple amendment to the controversial bill that would authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Sanders' measure, which he proposed to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, would have declared it the "sense of Congress" that climate change is real; that it is caused by humans; that it has already caused significant problems; and that the United States needs to shift its economy away from fossil fuels.
Sanders' amendment went nowhere. But Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the chair of the committee, used the opportunity to take a shot at climate science. "I do believe that our climate is changing," she said. "I don't agree that all the changes are necessarily due solely to human activity." Murkowski didn't elaborate on her current thinking about the causes of global warming, but in the past she's advanced a bizarre theory involving a volcano in Iceland.
Sanders will get another chance next week, when the full Senate debates the Keystone bill—but he's likely to run into stiff resistance from GOP climate deniers. As Climate Progress revealed Thursday, more than half of the Republican members of the new Congress "deny or question" the overwhelming scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. If you just look at the Senate, the numbers are even more disturbing. Thirty-nine GOP Senators reject the science on climate change—that's 72 percent of the Senate Republican caucus.
The list includes veteran lawmakers like James Inhofe (Okla.), who is the incoming chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) and has written a book titled, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. And it includes new senators like Steve Daines (Mont.), who thinks climate change might be caused by solar cycles. (For a great interactive map showing exactly how many climate deniers represent your state in Congress, click here.)
What's more, the Climate Progress analysis shows that many of the congressional committees that deal with climate and energy issues are loaded with global warming deniers:
All this could have serious policy consequences: Republicans are threatening to use their majority to cut the EPA's budget and derail the power plant regulations at the heart of President Barack Obama's signature climate initiative.
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It's actually less than the 79% of "steadfast conservatives" who are in the denier camp.
As with many issue, no amount of facts or evidence will convince you of something that you are bound-and-determined not to ever believe. The deniers' world view is tied up with a pro-business, pro-'freedom', anti-'big government' mindset. On a fundamental level they know that acknowledging climate change is out of the question.
Views about climate change and the environment are at the center of one of the U.S.’s sharpest ideological divides, as seen through the different opinions of the seven Typology groups in today’s political landscape. About nine-in-ten Solid Liberals (91%) said the Earth is getting warmer, but just two-in-ten Steadfast Conservatives (21%) agreed.
And there is a similar gap between those who said the U.S. should do whatever it takes to protect the environment and those who thought the country had gone too far in its efforts to protect the environment. Nearly all Solid Liberals (96%) and just 21% of Steadfast Conservatives said the U.S. should do whatever it takes, while 2% of Solid Liberals and 75% of Steadfast Conservatives say the country has gone too far.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/23/most-americans-believe-in-climate-change-but-give-it-low-priority/
