Glimmers Of Climate Hope, Actually, In Tragicomic Republican Debate

The usual climate silliness, but some glimmers of hope
in Wednesday's Republican Presidential debate.

 I guess it's a sign of progress among Republicans that Fox News asked a question about climate change during Wednesday's Republican presidential candidate debate. 

And one candidate was actually booed for saying climate change is in his words, a "hoax."

As HuffPost reports:

".....the moderates listed recent disasters - Hawaii's wildfires, California's rare hurricane, Florida's 101-degree seas and the Southwest's record heat  - and asked the eight Republicans onstage to raise their hands if they believed 'human behavior is causing climate change.'

The raised hands would have been sort of enlightening, at least to me, but true to form Ron DeSantis had to step in to avoid any new knowledge or facts among the public. He wanted wiggle room to avoid any kind of yes or no answer. To make it easier to backtrack in the future, I guess?

Instead, DeSantis quickly interrupted, "We're not schoolchildren. Let's have a debate," before immediately pivoting into a canned response saying Biden's disaster responses have sucked and the media is giving the president a pass on that. 

We can fact check that, but it's not worth the bother. 

The most interesting moment in the debate climate discussion came when entrepreneur and candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said, "It's a hoax....The reality is, the anti-carbon agenda is a wet blanket on our economy. More people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change."

The remarkable thing was, the audience at the debate was rabidly Republican and right-wing. And many audience members booed Ramaswamy for his remarks. I guess the Republican rank and file are ahead of some of their so-called leaders. 

Candidate Nikki Haley piped up right after that, and pretty much shut Ramaswamy down by saying, "Climate change is real. Yes, it is. If you want to change the environment, we need to start telling China and India that they have to lower their emissions."

At least Haley's comments were relatively reasonable. China and India do need to reduce their emissions, but so does the rest of the world. Give Haley credit for stating a basic fact on climate change. 

As the Associated Press reports, some conservative organizations are frustrated by candidates like Ramaswamy dismissing climate change

"'We're getting to a point where Republicans are losing winnable elections because they're alienating people that care about climate change,' Christopher Barnard, the Republican president of the American Conservation Coalition, the largest conservative environmental group in the nation,' said Thursday."

As AP also points out, there's a growing gap between younger voters - including young conservatives - and older Republicans. 

Increasingly, younger Republicans believe climate change is at least an issue that needs addressing. The GOP's older base regard climate science as a hoax conspiracy theory launched by liberals, to I don't know...

Interestingly, though, Ramaswamy is younger, only 38 years old. He's been consistently for fossil fuel development throughout his early campaign. "Human flourishing requires fossil fuel," he likes to say. 

Maybe it was, but.........

The debate was held in Milwaukee Wednesday. Also Wednesday, Milwaukee experienced a record high of 101 degrees, with a heat index as high as 116 degrees.   City officials were forced to close public schools in the city Wednesday and Thursday due to the extreme heat. 

It seems like the effects of climate change followed the Republicans to the debate, whether they liked it or not.