Alex Lazar of the Huffington Post reports Sheldon Whitehouse Slams Marco Rubio's Climate Change Comments In New Letter, in response to Rubio's remarks on ABC's News on Sunday that he did not "believe that human activity is causing dramatic changes to our climate the way scientists are portraying it." Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a Democrat from Rhode Island.
Whitehouse recently traveled to Florida to observe the effects of climate change. In a letter ... he responded to Rubio's comments, saying they were out of step with what Floridians were experiencing.
"I met Floridians who know that climate change from carbon pollution is real, and who have to adapt to the effects while Congress does nothing to stop the carbon pollution causing these rapid changes,"
"Monroe County has a Republican mayor who is putting climate and energy policy at the heart of her 20-year growth plan ... [Miami Beach] Mayor [Philip] Levine is pushing a $400 million plan to make the city’s drainage system more resilient in the face of rising tides," Whitehouse adds.
Whitehouse Full Letter To Rubio
Here is one more selected paragraph from the full letter which you can see at the above link.
To deny the cause of climate change and assert that we shouldn’t try to do anything about it is to condemn our children and grandchildren to a much different world than the one you and I have come to love. Furthermore, our economy is already being harmed by climate change. Sea level rise and coastal flooding from extreme weather are already realities in Broward County and other areas – stressing infrastructure like waste water and drinking water systems. This has a real cost for taxpayers in Florida and Rhode Island... I hope you will reconsider your views about climate change, and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this matter with you further.
Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight notes Marco Rubio’s Problem Isn’t What You Think It Is
An average of polls taken since March 1 has Rubio’s net favorable rating at -4 points. The most recent Quinnpiac University poll shows 27 percent of registered voters giving Rubio a positive rating and 31 percent giving him a negative rating.
Enten speculates that donors, activists, and campaign workers making earlier decisions may be turned off implying a self-fulfilling prophesy that is an example of the systems thinking archetype we call "Success to the Successful" or in this case "Failure to the Failed."
SoS or FttF is a generic behavior of exponential growth or collapse that arises a consequence of the feedback structure of two reinforcing feedback loops (aka positive feedbacks where positive does not mean good but reinforcing), competing for resources where the stronger entity gains more resources becoming even stronger while the weaker receives fewer resources becoming even weaker.
Unfortunate timing for Senator Rubio.
Just as an example of how the SoS archetype might be used, in this example, if we were to imagine someone were a Democratic political strategist allocating finite resources to opposition research on G.O.P. candidates in preparation for the 2016 primaries it would appear a good start as been initiated on Governor Chris Christie, and Senator Marco Rubio.
Perhaps, the next priorities should be former Governor Jeb Bush, Representative Paul Ryan, and even former Governor Mitt Romney who I believe is orchestrating a draft Romney campaign despite his denials. We also must not forget Governor Rick Perry, Ohio Governor John Kasich, Wisconsin Governor and Scott Walker. So if you know any such Democratic strategists or activists you might want to suggest they keep on an on these folks, collect distressing images and articles about them, and generally educate themselves about the strength and weaknesses of these potential GOP 2016 primary candidates even though the elections seem to be far away. From one perspective we may be at a moment of "high leverage" impact on the formation of image. ... I mean if someone were interested in that sort of thing, that is.
In the Art of War some 3,000 year ago Sun Tzu advised the wise general to study one's enemy well, and attack one's opponent at the spot of their greatest weakness with ones own greatest strength.
Preparing well in advance gives provides the wise strategist time to prepare resources and plans to create advantages for later - just as a random example.