Another Republican Who Believes In Climate Change

by Stuart Shapiro

Last month it was George Schultz; now it is former Republican Congressman Sherwood Boehlert.  Boehlert penned an op-ed in the Washington Post calling on his former comrades to acknowledge human caused climate change.

National Journal reported last month that 19 of the 20 serious GOP Senate challengers declared that the science of climate change is either inconclusive or flat-out wrong. Many newly elected Republican House members take that position. It is a stance that defies the findings of our country’s National Academy of Sciences, national scientific academies from around the world and 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists.

Why do so many Republican senators and representatives think they are right and the world’s top scientific academies and scientists are wrong?  . . .

There is a natural aversion to more government regulation. But that should be included in the debate about how to respond to climate change, not as an excuse to deny the problem’s existence. The current practice of disparaging the science and the scientists only clouds our understanding and delays a solution.

Unfortunately, Boehlert has something else in common with Schultz.  He’s retired.  Apparently the only way a Republican can acknowledge basic facts and science is to no longer have to run for office.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.