Senator Bernie Sanders, amid the Democratic Presidential primary, has had strong words about Republican presidential candidates and climate change. Amid discussions of the (distorting) influence of interest group financing in politics during the 3 Feb debate with Secretary/Senator Clinton, Sanders said
Do you think there’s a reason why not one Republican has the guts to recognize that climate change is real, and that we need to transform our energy system? Do you think it has anything to do with the Koch brothers and ExxonMobil pouring huge amounts of money into the political system?
Polifact took on the this statement — in a dissected form — and went to rate it. As an advance warning, they did so in a convoluted manner focused on “fact” that ended up leaving aside “truth”. Before getting to Politifact, let’s lay out some climate truth:
- The earth is warming at unprecedented (in terms of humanity’s time on the planet) rate and scale.
- Human activity (primarily the burning of fossil fuels) is driving this warming.
- The warming — the human-driven climate change — is creating serious risks for human civilization.
- Significant, serious, and action is required both to reduce emissions (en route a carbon-neutral (if not negative) global economy) and to prepare global society (and the United States) for deal with climate consequences.
“They’re all denying climate change. I think that’s troubling to the international community, since the science in unequivocal.” @POTUS
— Juliet Eilperin (@eilperin) February 16, 2016
Sadly, Politifact is not alone …
.@NYTimes‘ @thomaskaplan, like @Politifact, emphasizes narrow ‘fact’ vs truth on #climate
— A Siegel (@A_Siegel) February 17, 2016
Bernie Sanders said none of the GOP candidates believe climate change is real. Fact check: https://t.co/R4bwBKcVvB
— Thomas Kaplan (@thomaskaplan) February 15, 2016
Hopefully media outlets will more deeply explore how well the candidates’ comments square with climate science going forward, particularly in articles that purport to be “fact-checks.” Splitting the GOP field into “outsider” candidates who reject climate science and “establishment” candidates who accept it might make for a compelling media narrative. But it doesn’t make for an accurate one.
Not one Republican recognizes that climate change is real?
On the issue of whether climate has been changing significantly in recent decades, Bush, Christie, Fiorina, Kasich and Rubio say that it has.
Bush, Christie, Fiorina and Kasich say it’s man made. Rubio says it’s not.
Bush, Christie, Fiorina and Kasich have called for some degree of action to combat it.