{"id":588539,"date":"2023-08-25T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-25T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/rating-the-gop-candidates-on-the-climate-debate\/"},"modified":"2023-08-25T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2023-08-25T19:30:00","slug":"rating-the-gop-candidates-on-the-climate-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/rating-the-gop-candidates-on-the-climate-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"#Rating the GOP candidates on the climate debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1634970584-e1692845444147.jpg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>During Wednesday night\u2019s Republican debate, presidential hopefuls took the stage in Wisconsin and discussed a myriad of topics ranging from Trump\u2019s complicity in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol (and democracy) to a national abortion ban to immigration.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>They had a real chance to show they\u2019ve come a long way on climate change, especially coming one month after the hottest July on record, amid what is likely to be the first annual Hot Planet Summer.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Overall, they all failed the test.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The topic of climate change, surely the greatest existential crisis of a generation\u2014or more at the rate we\u2019re working on solving it\u2014didn\u2019t even break the top five in terms of time spent on the issues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But at least it came up.<\/p>\n<p>Grading on a curve, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley probably did the best, earning a gentlewoman\u2019s C for her response to the climate question. \u201cYes, it is [real],\u201d she contended.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut if you want to go and really change the environment, then we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions.\u201d She\u2019s right, but she failed to connect the dots to policies the U.S. could enact that would force China, India and Russia\u2019s hands, policies like a carbon border adjustment which would require heavy-polluting countries to pay at the border for us to import their manufactured products, which aren\u2019t produced as cleanly as the U.S. equivalents with much lower carbon intensities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While she gets partial credit for her response, the Fox <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> commentators get an F for falling into the trap that so much of the <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">media<\/a> is stuck in: asking if humans had contributed to climate change. (<em>Spoiler alert<\/em>: yes, we have.)<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>\u201cGravity doesn\u2019t care whether you believe in it or not,\u201d climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe often says, \u201cbut if you step off a cliff, you\u2019re going to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And down they went.<\/p>\n<p>One guy that definitely does not <em>believe<\/em> and thus would walk this country\u2014and the world\u2014off that proverbial cliff is Vivek Ramaswamy, who called for more drilling, more fracking, more burning of coal as he leaned in on former President Donald Trump\u2019s position to assert that the \u201cclimate change agenda is a hoax\u201d and that \u201cthe reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Ramaswamy doesn\u2019t even deserve an F; he gets a zero for obviously skipping class, perhaps holed up in an air-conditioned bunker with no credible news and only red meat talking points drafted by the Koch Brothers at his disposal. But former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie earned his F for using his rebuttal time to make a ChatGPT quip and Barack Obama dig instead of invoking his gubernatorial experience during Superstorm Sandy, the hurricane which devastated the New Jersey coast and flooded numerous communities in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>When governing the purple-tinted blue state, Christie used to be a guy on the side of solving climate change. Until he set his sights on higher office. Now anything goes.<\/p>\n<p>Scoring solid D\u2019s for their climate responses are Ron DeSantis\u2014the governor of Florida, the state most firmly on the front lines of climate change, a state with such high risk that <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theinvadingsea.com\/2023\/08\/08\/climate-change-florida-homeowners-insurance-hurricanes\/\">home insurers are pulling out <\/a>and scientists are pulling coral reefs out of the water in an attempt to save them in a laboratory\u2014and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who rattled off a talking point about bringing American jobs back from China. (<em>See also<\/em>: Nikki Haley feedback)<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Overall, the eight candidates on the stage missed an opportunity to lead the GOP into the 21st century on climate change. (Yes, I know, we are two-plus decades into the century.) But this crew has regressed from the positions of former GOP presidential candidates. Take for example, George W. Bush who in his 2000 campaign committed to reduce CO2. (Under pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney and Senate Republicans he <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2001\/03\/14\/us\/bush-in-reversal-won-t-seek-cut-in-emissions-of-carbon-dioxide.html\">eventually reneged on that promise<\/a>.) Arizona Sen. John McCain is perhaps the Republican most credited with trying to bring the GOP along on climate change. In the 2008 race, he and Obama softly debated climate in their face-to-face match up. (McCain was much more passionate about the issue than his opponent.)<\/p>\n<p>I will give that it might be hard for Republicans to pivot and be for something they once vehemently denied, though 30 years ago, this was still a bipartisan issue with the divide falling more by region than party.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Climate change should no longer be an issue the candidates run from. Maui was just on fire. Florida oceans are hot tubs. Smoke from Canadian wildfires were choking the Midwest and Mid Atlantic earlier this summer. While some courageous policy makers are bullish on the issue\u2014like Utah Rep. John Curtis, founder of the House Conservative Climate Caucus, who is bringing his peers to the table so they aren\u2019t on the menu\u2014a plethora of GOP-climate led solutions are not exactly being offered up.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr5_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>And that\u2019s a real shame because a suite of market-based policies designed to cut emissions would not only work, but they would set their champions apart as solvers of climate change.\u00a0Now that would be a record to run on.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mary Anna Mancuso is a political strategist based in South Florida and a spokesperson for<\/em><a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/republicen.org\/\"><em> RepublicEn.org<\/em><\/a><em>, a growing group of conservatives who care about climate change.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/congress-blog\/4170775-rating-the-gop-candidates-on-the-climate-debate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During Wednesday night\u2019s Republican debate, presidential hopefuls took the stage in Wisconsin and discussed a myriad of topics ranging from Trump\u2019s complicity in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol (and democracy) to a national abortion ban to immigration.\u00a0 They had a real chance to show they\u2019ve come a long way on climate change,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":588540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/GettyImages-1634970584-e1692845444147.jpg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[134344,134343,43485,134418,10574,134661,73014,90482,124783],"class_list":["post-588539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-administration","tag-campaign","tag-climate-change","tag-congress-blog","tag-education","tag-energy-environment","tag-health-care","tag-house","tag-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}