After the network showed a clip of a young conservative activist saying that climate change was the number one issue for young voters, Fox News moderator Martha MacCallum asked for a show of hands in response to her question, “Do you believe human behavior is causing climate change?”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to participate, and then GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy declared, “I’m the only person on the stage who isn’t bought and paid for, so I can say this: The climate change agenda is a hoax.” A crowd full of Republicans started to boo.
Most of the Republicans on stage fell short of completely denying that climate change is caused by human activity. Ramaswamy, perhaps taking a page out of the Trump playbook of making the most outlandish comment possible, came right out and said it.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie shot back, “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT.” Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley went so far as to venture, “Climate change is real.”
But moderator Bret Baier seized not on Ramaswamy’s blatant denial of the scientific consensus on climate change, but on his claim that he was the only candidate on the stage who was “not bought and paid for.” Baier took turns asking candidates, “Are you bought and paid for?” In classic Fox News fashion, a moment that could have provided insight into how far Republicans are willing to go to please young voters concerned about the environment devolved into senseless crosstalk. Still, for a party that has spent years ignoring or denying the biggest threat to our planet’s future, tonight’s responses were actually, almost, a little bit refreshing.
Is this article from The Onion? Or am I like on candid camera or something? They believe in climate change now and are against it?
The narrative changed about 10 years ago to "well it's happening, but humans can't do anything about it, it's a natural process". No real difference, but it puts a bit more smoke and mirrors up for the rubes who believe that sort of thing since it sounds a bit less wrong.
Interesting that you can tell where someone's political development kinda "paused" based on this. A dork who thinks climate change isn't happening is a full 10 years behind their fellow dorks.
Here's their evolution on climate change:
How many more steps until some responsibility is accepted?
That's the fun part, libs never accept responsibility.
Oh, "the libs", yeah, I forgot.
For context they're using liberal to mean anyone who's pro capitalism but not a fascist. Which is pretty dumb imo since like a third of the republican base are committed fascists (regardless of whether they're open about it or not).
"responsibility"
they're just going to keep shooting people until the weather goes away
It happened here, but it's the left's fault for not being cool enough for me to listen to them.
I think it's gonna lead to more calling for nationalist sentiment. My chud brothers say shit like, "We need to secure resources for the people that contribute". They think people walking across borders are polluting more than people flying in planes because, "Elon is trying to fix climate change"
Also once the effects get really bad they can accuse Democrats of trying to make us miserable during the final enjoyable days on Earth. We'll let you have fun in these final moments while the Democrats will try to enslave you to sift through garbage heaps.
It's the classic Yes, Prime Minister Four-Stage Strategy.
In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.
(also we were never responsible, buy Enron stock today)
Edit: Actually, I was just looking into it, I think this claim is unsupported. Looks like climate change will cause a 5-25% less than what it would have been, but that's as compared to the projected growth of yields due to improved technology and resources. So the picture is a little more muddy but still impactful.
Climate change isn't really something you can deny anymore if you work in ag, and a lot of small-town conservatives have a close relationship to farming (not trying to stereotype, just speaking to my experience in Iowa). Yields have been declining basically every year for the last 10 or so, with wind, drought, and flooding being the top reasons. Temps in the central US reached the highest since the great depression and the dust bowl. For those people, denying the existence of climate change is basically saying you'll do nothing to help farmers suffering from decreasing yields. It's not a harmless "anti-woke" opinion anymore, it's actively harmful to the material conditions of a lot of republicans.
That's not to say it isn't really interesting watching them dance around it. They'll probably try to say, "yea, it's real, but there's no point in cutting back fossil fuels at this point. Here's more farming subsidies to help with your decreasing yields", and i'm betting that it will still be very effective for their base.-