And As You Suspected, GOP Freedom Clowns' Climate "Policies" Are Just More Empty Political Posturing

[hatrack]

EDIT

Fortunately, there are no more climate-denier politicians, right? Republicans are now, according to some credulous reporting, all on board with climate change and preparing to roll out solutions, right? Perhaps not, according to…other Republicans. Forgive our harping on this topic again, but yesterday the Washington Examiner’s Josh Seigel ran a story about how “Republicans have convinced their most conservative members to support a forthcoming plan for the federal government to address climate change.”

They’ve done so, Seigl reports, by crafting a plan that doesn’t actually address climate change by reducing fossil fuel use, but merely sounds like it would while in fact promoting fossil fuels. And it’s not us saying that, it’s them. As Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) said, “you can call it political calculus or representing the people you represent,” but whatever you call it, “we do need a message for them” – referring to those who are concerned about climate change. Note that he did not say we need a plan, or policy, or actual course of action for them. No, they only need a message.

Similarly, Garret Graves (R-LA) said that what they are “asking members to do is to double down… so it’s not like we’ve gone out there to the Freedom Caucus to say, ‘We are asking you to take a hard left turn.’” Straight from the source, it’s not actually a change at all, but a doubling down on the GOP’s pro-fossil-fuel stance.

EDIT

But perhaps we’re being too cynical, and Republicans might really have a shot at making climate progress under the Trump administration. Speaking of whom, what’s the administration’s take on all this, anyway? Per a Trump administration official, these “are messaging bills and all about the next election, and that’s great. But the president has been pretty clear that he cares about affordable energy, energy independence, and clean air and clean water. He is not particularly obsessed about climate change.” Ah, so Team Trump makes it clear that these are an empty attempt to convince voters that Republicans care about climate change without actually doing anything about it.

EDIT

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/1/31/1915392/-GOP-Admits-Climate-Plan-Is-Messaging-To-Appease-Voters-Not-Policy-To-Reduce-Fossil-Fuel-Use

[snowybirdie]

1. A good read

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2020-01-30/1988-global-warming-forecast-by-james-hansen-proved-mostly-true?__twitter_impression=true