Del. Alfonso Lopez takes on Republican climate science deniers and makes some great points, despite the deniers’ utter lack of seriousness on this issue. A few highlights:
*Del. Lopez points out that if we’re going to say no to the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, we should at least acknowledge the problem that the Clean Power Plan is seeking to address and provide our own solution to reduce carbon pollution and combat climate change.
*He quickly reviews the voluminous scientific evidence of man-made global warming; the environmental and economic risks it poses; and the urgent need for action to slash our greenhouse gas emissions.
*He notes that fossil fuel interests always have made doomsday claims about “killing jobs” and “hurting the economy” by enacting environmental protection regulations and laws, and “every time they’ve been wrong.”
*In reality, Lopez correctly explains, switching from dirty to clean energy will boost the economy and create jobs. Lopez sums it up: “If we have the chance to create more jobs, increase economic development, lower monthly power bills, improve public health (especially for children and vulnerable populations), and create a cleaner and healthier environment for future generations – why wouldn’t we act immediately?”
In response, you’d hope that we could have a serious debate NOT about the settled subject of whether climate change exists (or whether we should do anything about it, the clear answer to which is YES!), but simply about the preferred course of action — put a price on carbon? enact a cap-and-trade system? put policies in place to encourage clean energy? – to deal with it.
But nooooo. Instead, what we get from Republicans is a bunch of utter idiocy/ignorance, denial of science, distortions, falsehoods, outright lies, claims that this is a “liberal” issue, you name it. On one level, it’s hilarious, laughable, great fodder for late-night comedy shows, etc. But on every other level, it’s frightening, appalling, depressing, horrifying, etc. I mean, seriously, how can the United States of America, which Republicans keep stressing is so “exceptional,” have a major political party that is so utterly UNexceptional in terms of its respect for learning, knowledge, empirical evidence and science? On second thought, perhaps THAT is what’s really exceptional – that this loony-tunes, crackpot GOP somehow remains a major political party in this country, and that tens of millions of people continue to vote for them. Ugh.
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