New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has always been a thorn in the side of party progressives, both for his tactics and his policy stances. Proves himself in this regard over and over again. And that includes climate change. While he's not in the same category as the global-warming-is-a-hoax crowd, Scott Waldman
writes:
Cuomo, thus far in his governorship, has been unwilling to take any stance on the causes of climate change beyond acknowledging that climate change, for whatever reason, exists.
"We are experiencing a pattern of extreme weather that we have not seen before," Cuomo told reporters Sunday after a press conference about the massive lake-effect snowstorm that hit Buffalo last week and the flooding that's now likely because of warming temperatures. "I don't want to get into a political debate at this time about climate change causes, et cetera. Forget the causes. Is it global warming? Is it reliance on fossil fuels? Forget the causes. What is inarguable is the result."
While that may not quite sound like outright rejection of what the International Panel on Climate Change and the overwhelming majority of scientists with relevant credentials say is happening, his remarks have to be taken in the context of what else Cuomo has said, or not said, on the subject.
In his memoir, All Things Possible, under the section indexed “global warming,” Cuomo also avoids taking the position that human activity is warming the planet and changing the weather. Instead, he writes that the ramifications of extreme weather are among his “most daunting” challenges.
This is a simple matter. At such a late date, anyone who doesn't accept the scientific consensus that human activities are at the root of global warming has to be counted among the climate-change deniers. That's no place for any Democrat to be, particularly the chief executive of the nation's third most populous state with hopes of someday being in the big chair of the Oval Office. Just one more reason for ensuring that those hopes go unfulfilled.