By Brad Friedman on 5/23/2014, 7:35am PT  

Recently, conservative Andrew Sullivan (an actual conservative, as opposed to a wingnut Republican "conservative"), decried the Rightwing "resistance to the overwhelming data behind carbon and climate change" and what he describes as the "obvious role for conservatism here at every stage", as he bemoaned the buffoonery on the issue from once-serious folks like George Will and Charles Krauthammer as "deeply dispiriting"...

[A]t this point, the overwhelming scientific consensus is clear enough, and the argument behind it powerful. The world’s climate is changing; and it will mean huge challenges for humanity’s habitat. I simply cannot see why any sane person would not wish to try and mitigate that change or prepare for such an eventuality. It’s not about ideology so much as simple prudence. Even if you view the likelihood of a much warmer planet as small, its huge potential impact still makes it worth confronting. Low-probability-high-impact events are like that. And conservatives, properly understood, attend to such contingent problems prudently; only ideologues or fools decide it would be better to do nothing and hope for the best.
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No amount of denial or distraction can change that fact. Either we adjust or we face the consequences. Or both. But pretending we live on another planet in another era does not seem to me to be a conservative position.

No, it's not a conservative position, but it is the "conservative" position, as of now, even as Sullivan still seems to have trouble grappling with the all-but-disappearance of what once used to be a legitimate political movement in America.

For another take on the Rightwing abandonment of reality, see former Republican D.R. Tucker's recent take-down of Republican Joe Scarborough after the MSNBC host blamed Al Gore for Sen. Marco Rubio and the Republican Party's newly-found climate denialism.

For my money, however, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse still offers the most plausible explanation for the GOP's madness in the face of our ever-quickening climate crisis.

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Article Categories: Environment, Republicans, Climate change