For the first time in the 2016 Presidential election, a national Republican audience has been told that climate change is real.
Whether that will sink in or not remains to be seen. But we can hope.
It happened tonight at the GOP Debate in Miami (see full video/transcript here).
It started badly, with moderator Jake Tapper addressing a question to Little Marco Rubio:
TAPPER: ...While we’re discussing the issues of importance to Floridians, I reached out to the Republican mayor of Miami, Tomas Regalado, to find out what he wanted to hear from you this evening.
Mayor Regalado told me, quote, “Climate change means rising ocean levels, which in south Florida means flooding downtown and in our neighborhoods. It’s an every day reality in our city. Will you, as president acknowledge the reality of the scientific consensus about climate change and as president, will you pledge to do something about it?” Unquote.
Senator Rubio, the Miami mayor has endorsed you. Will you honor his request for a pledge and acknowledge the reality of the scientific consensus of climate change and pledge to do something about it?
RUBIO: Well, sure if the climate is changing and one of the reasons is because the climate has always been changing. (APPLAUSE)
This is what passes for science in today's GOP mainstream. Unfortunately, it's bullshit.
RUBIO: There’s never been a time when the climate has not changed. I think the fundamental question for a policy maker is, is the climate changing because of something we are doing and if so, is there a law you can pass to fix it?
So on the issue of flooding in Miami, it’s caused by two things. Number one, south Florida is largely built on land that was once a swamp. And number two, because if there is higher sea levels or whatever it may be happening, we do need to deal with that through mitigation.
And I have long supported mitigation efforts. But as far as a law that we can pass in Washington to change the weather, there’s no such thing.
So he's okay with helping Miami... but screw the rest of us. This has long been the GOP line: "Even if it's real, we'll just deal with it, somehow." Problem is, dealing with it somehow costs money, impacts the bottom lines of families and businesses that are already stretched thin, and requires government intervention. It's cheaper to act before things get bad.
RUBIO: On the contrary, there is laws they want us to pass. There are laws they want to us pass that would be devastating for our economy or these programs like what the president has put in with the Clean Power Act or all these sorts of things that he’s forcing down our throats on the war on coal.
Just to be clear... independent analysts say the Clean Power Act will save money overall, not destroy the economy. And there is no war on coal - market forces have destroyed coal, not government regulation. China doesn't want dirty coal any more than we do, which is why China is shutting down their coal-fired power plants.
Let me tell you who is going to pay the price of that? Americans are going to pay the price of that. The cost of doing that is going to be rammed down the throats of the American consumer, the single parent, the working families who are going to see increases in the cost of living.
Again, that's just wrong. Not to mention that Americans are going to pay the price of cleaning up the mess that climate change is already creating...
RUBIO: The businesses who are going to leave America because it’s more expensive to do business here than anywhere else.
Still wrong
And you know what passing those laws would have — what impact it would have on the environment? Zero, because China is still going to be polluting and India is still going to be polluting at historic levels. So, I am in favor of a clean environment. My children live in South Florida. My family is being raised here. I want this to be a safe and clean place, but these laws some people are asking us to pass will do nothing for the environment and they will hurt and devastate our economy.
And... still wrong. China and India are already working to cut back on emissions, and they signed the Paris Accords that will allow the world to work together to cut emissions even further. The only people in the entire planet who aren't on board with this are the Republican leadership - even the majority of the Republican base agrees we need to do something about climate change.
TAPPER: So just to clarify, Senator Rubio, Mayor Regalado when he talks about the reality of the scientific consensus about climate change, the Republican mayor of Miami, he’s saying the scientific consensus is that man does contribute to climate change.
When you talk to him, because he is the mayor of Miami and he has endorsed you, do you tell him that he’s wrong?
And kudos to Tapper for following up like this...
RUBIO: I would say to him that there is no law that they want us to pass that would have any impact on that. If we pass — if you took the gift list of all of these groups that are asking us to pass these laws and did every single one of them, there would be no change in our environment. Sea level would still rise. All these other things that are happening would continue to go on for a lot of different reasons.
This is almost a breakthrough. He's at least moved on from the James Inhofe line that "Climate change is the biggest hoax in the history of the world" to "well, it's real but we can't do anything about it." I think that's a nice little baby step in the right direction...
One, because America is not a planet. It’s a country.
Um... yes. But we're ON a planet. Well, most of us are, anyway. I'm not sure about Little Marco. Maybe he's on a small asteroid, like The Little Prince...
And number two, because these other countries like India and China are more than making up in carbon emissions for whatever we could possibly cut.
Wrong.
Here’s what he will immediately — and Mayor Regalado is a great mayor and a good friend — but here’s what he’s going to immediately going to start hearing from.
He will immediately start hearing from families in South Florida who are barely making it by, and now their electric bill went up $20 or $30 a month because we just made it more expensive to generate power. That cost will be passed on to working families. I am not going to destroy the U.S. economy for a law that will do nothing for our environent. (APPLAUSE)
If Marco Rubio really thinks that $20 to $30 a month is going to destroy the US economy, then it's time we nationalize the oil companies. Those bastards have been sticking it to American consumers for a lot more than $30 a month (although right now prices are down, no thanks to them).
Now's when things get interesting...
TAPPER: Governor Kasich, what would you say to the mayor of Miami?
KASICH: Well, I — I do believe we contribute to climate change, but I don’t think it has to be a, you know, either you’re for some environmental stringent rules or, you know, you’re not going to have any jobs. The fact is, you can have both.
Finally! A leading national Republican elected figure gets on national television and tells the GOP that climate change is real!
In our state, we’ve reduced emissions by 30 percent.
And Ohio is not bankrupt (that would be Kansas, where the local GOP has destroyed the state economy through tax cuts)
But let me tell you also what we’re trying to do. We want all the sources of energy. We want to dig coal, but we want to clean it when we burn it. We believe in natural gas. We believe in nuclear power.
And you know what else I believe in? I happen to believe in solar energy, wind energy, efficiency, renewables matter.
Thank you, Governor! It doesn't have to be all fossil fuels, all the time.
Now, it doesn’t mean because you pursue a policy of being sensitive to the environment, because we don’t know how much humans actually contribute. But it is important we develop renewables. Battery technology can unleash an entirely different world.
So the fact is that you can have a strong environmental policy at the same time that you have strong economic growth and they are not inconsistent with one another.
TAPPER: Thank you, Governor.
Yes, thank you Governor.
It's a shame you'll probably be out of the race after Tuesday, but at least somebody finally said this out loud, on national television.
(Crossposted from my environmental policy blog, RedGREENandBlue.)