“While few Americans regard the environment as the nation’s foremost challenge, most say it should be a priority, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. And more than half say global warming is caused by human behavior, the highest level ever recorded by the national poll.”

“The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress,” the New York Times reports.

“In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.”

“To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a ‘politically binding’ deal that would ‘name and shame’ countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path.”

“I’m not a scientist either but I can use my brain and I can talk to one.”

— Charlie Crist (D), quoted by St. Petersblog, on Gov. Rick Scott (R) not wanting to talk about climate change because “I’m not a scientist.”

“Nothing.”

— Liz Cheney, quoted by the Huffington Post, when asked what the Republican Party should do to address climate change.

“I don’t want get into the debate about climate change. But I’ll simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There’s no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”

— Kentucky state Sen. Brandon Smith (R), quoted by WFPL, apparently not knowing that the average temperature on Mars is -81 degrees.

“It’s a trend now big enough to put a name to. Many Americans are rigging their trucks to intentionally emit large plumes of toxic smoke. It’s called ‘rolling coal,’ and it’s meant as a political statement,” WSB-TV reports.

“The truck owner rigs the diesel engine to emit large amounts of black soot. One truck owner labeled his vehicle ‘Prius repellant’ and took a video as he aimed smoke at a car behind him. For some, it’s a form of protest against environmentalism, striking back against efforts to lower carbon emissions and overall pollution. For others, it’s just for kicks.”

[Read more…]

Wonk Wire: Half of all Republican governors are climate change deniers

“There are some who duck the question by saying, ‘Hey, I’m not a scientist.’ Let me translate that for you: What that means is, ‘I accept that man-made climate change is real, but if I admit it, I’ll be run out of town by a radical fringe that thinks climate science is a liberal plot.'”

— President Obama, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, taking aim at climate change deniers.

Jon Stewart has a field day with Republicans who admit they “aren’t qualified” to debate climate change but then debate climate change. It’s brilliant.

[Read more…]

“But fifty years from now, is that going to seem like enough? I think the answer to that is going to be no.”

— White House adviser John Podesta, in an interview with Harper’s, on how President Obama’s new climate change efforts will be viewed historically.

Washington Examiner: “Even as Republican lawmakers denounced the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rules on power plants, they avoided one argument: that climate change is not real.”

“For years, congressional Republicans have voiced doubts over the science behind climate change in tones ranging from merely skeptical to certain that it is not happening. Yet no Republican leader on Capitol Hill — and few if any party back-benchers — challenged the existence of climate change when criticizing the proposed Environmental Protection Agency restrictions.”

Wonk Wire: Roundup of reactions to the proposed new EPA rules

“The president’s plan is nuts, there’s really no more succinct way to describe it.”

— House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), quoted by the Washington Post, on President Obama’s new EPA rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

“At the end of his first year in office, President Obama flew to Copenhagen and made a big promise: that the United States would cut its greenhouse gas emissions substantially by 2020 — a bold and risky pledge that hinged on a balky Congress to make it possible. His efforts became bogged down within months, and Mr. Obama’s pledge to the rest of the world soon looked like a pipe dream,” the New York Times reports.

“On Monday, Mr. Obama is planning to bypass Congress and take one of the biggest steps any American president has ever taken on climate change, proposing new rules to cut emissions at power plants. Yet, by itself, the president’s plan will barely nudge the global emissions that scientists say are threatening the welfare of future generations.”

Wonk Wire: How significant are the new EPA rules?

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) issued a familiar response to a question on climate change, the Huffington Post reports, noting “I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change.”

Jonathan Chait: “It’s a strange form of reasoning. Very few of us are scientists, which is exactly why we tend to defer to scientific judgment. It might make sense to question expert consensus in a field where you are an expert, but if you know very little about it, you probably want to just go along with what the experts think. Scientists do, in fact, have a nearly unanimous view of anthropogenic global warming. Scientists likewise believe that chugging Liquid Drano is bad for your health, which is why, precisely because of my lack of scientific training, I hold off on the Drano Cocktails.”

Wonk Wire: More Rubio skepticism on climate change.

“A Super PAC funded by liberal billionaire and environmentalist Tom Steyer has announced it will spend as much as $100 million this election season attacking Republicans in seven key states who it says are climate-science deniers,” NBC News reports.

“These states – all of which President Barack Obama won in both 2008 and 2012 – also play an important role in 2016, given that Iowa and New Hampshire are early presidential nominating contests, and that Colorado and Florida are top general-election battlegrounds.”

Jonathan Chait: “The scientific consensus is stronger and more urgent than ever, while the political consensus is weaker than ever. Republicans are not even considering the notion of asking Americans to spend money to mitigate climate change, and are increasingly uncertain about the notion of even saving money to mitigate climate change. And into this simmering pot of reflexive opposition and anti-empiricism Obama will plop a highly ambitious and not very cuddly scheme to clean up the power-plant sector. It has already drawn strong opposition from the major business lobbies. It is likely to become the major point of conflagration of Obama’s second term.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) says pro-choice Democrats who criticize him for doubting man-made climate change should be questioned on why they support abortion when “it’s a proven fact” that “human life begins at conception,” the Huffington Post reports.

Said Rubio: “Here’s what I always get a kick out of, and it shows you the hypocrisy. All these people always wag their finger at me about science and settled science. Let me give you a bit of settled science that they’ll never admit to. The science is settled, it’s not even a consensus, it is a unanimity, that human life beings at conception. So I hope the next time someone wags their finger about science, they’ll ask one of these leaders on the left: ‘Do you agree with the consensus of scientists that say that human life begins at conception?’ I’d like to see someone ask that question.”

The Week: Why scientists don’t vote Republican

Wonk Wire shows that Republicans are really out-of-step with most of the word on climate change.