Click
here for the interactive version of this map.
I can hear the murmurs already. "Well, duh, what did you expect?" Indeed, before the tally for the November election was completed, it was obvious that we'd have some additions to the denier caucus from among the 71 new members of Congress. The deniers' pals have for years done a bang-up job of getting them elected. Oil and gas interests invested $53 million in the 2014 elections and close to $75 million in 2012. Around 90 percent of that investment went to Republicans, according to OpenSecrets.org.
So while the ignorance-flaunting caucus makes an excellent target for mockery, it is no joke.
Made up of two parts—the scientifically illiterate and people who know that human-caused global warming is a real thing but refuse to acknowledge it because doing so would cut into the campaign contributions they receive from the Kochs and other fossil fuel interests—the extremist denier caucus stands in the way of even the most moderate climate-related legislation.
Folks at the Center for American Progress have been keeping track of the congressional deniers for some time. This week they updated the interactive version of the state-by-state map posted above. Links embedded in the map include brief statements from each of the incumbents identified as not accepting the scientific consensus that climate change is happening, that humans are causing it and that if something isn't done to slow its progress, the damage will be immense and highly lethal, both to humans and other species.
Tiffany Germain, Kristen Ellingboe and Kiley Kroh write:
Over 56 percent of Republicans in the 114th Congress deny or question the science behind human-caused climate change, according to an analysis by CAP Action.
On the heels of what looks to be the warmest year in recorded history, with the global carbon dioxide levels that drive climate change reaching unprecedented levels, 53 percent—131 members—of the Republican caucus in the House of Representatives deny the occurrence of human-caused global warming and 72 percent—39 members—on the Senate side sing the same tune.
There's more about the deniers and their enablers below the fold.
Too many congressional Democrats are silent about or give little thought to climate change. Although there are some tough-minded members in the Safe Climate Caucus in the House and the Climate Change Caucus in the Senate, fewer than 15 percent of Democrats in Congress belong to those bodies.
When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) gets up to deliver one of his regular climate change speeches on the floor of the Senate—as he has done 83 times in the past three years—it is usually to a sparsely populated chamber. Ditto when Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) speaks on the subject.
While neither Whitehouse nor Boxer can be blamed—they have been exemplary—most congressional Democrats have failed to make climate change a major issue. In both the presidential and congressional campaigns of 2012, for instance, climate change barely got a mention from incumbents or challengers. Likewise for the congressional campaigns of 2014. It should have been front and center.
Those Democrats who avoid taking a forceful and persistent stance on climate change policy—both on the campaign trail and in Congress—contribute to the delays in taking action in the matter. These delayers are no better than deniers themselves. Indeed, they are worse since they know that human-caused climate change is happening yet they refuse even to try to do anything substantive about it.
Democrats who aren't just pretending when pressed that climate change requires action ought to be publicly challenging deniers and delayers—including those within their own ranks—at every opportunity. Whether they are in Washington or on their home turf talking face-to-face with the voters who sent them there, climate change ought always to be near the top of their list of priorities. They should be educating voters to the realities, both of climate change and of the powerful, reactionary forces arrayed against doing anything about it.
They shouldn't be waiting until a reporter or activist or colleague brings up the subject. They should be bringing it up, unprompted, relentlessly and unapologetically.
They should be connecting with elected and appointed officials at the state level, where some forward-thinking climate change-related actions are being undertaken in the absence of anything in Congress. They should be repeatedly informing people about the important elements in President Obama's Climate Action Plan as well as critiquing the administration's all-of-the-above energy approach that cuts against that plan.
They should be working together to generate Democratic climate-change policies for when the day comes they are again in the majority and in a position to make those policies happen.
Given the crisis we face, that map of deniers is frightening. But changing it, turning it from red to green, means a change in attitude, an increase of vigor and a development of new tactics on the part of those members of Congress who currently say, "oh-sure-global-warming-is-a-problem-but …"
There ought to be no "buts."
