We Can Stop Pretending Any of the 2016 Republicans Believe in Science

Rand Paul was having a good night, until…

<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-2083364p1.html?cr=00&pl=edit-00">Andrew Cline</a>/Shutterstock


This story originally appeared in The New Republic, and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Rand Paul was having a decent night in the fourth Republican debate Tuesday, until he fielded a question about climate change. With his answer, he disappointed those who thought he might deliver reality-based comments.

Paul, like the rest of the GOP candidates, wants to repeal President Barack Obama’s legacy-making Clean Power Plan reining in carbon emissions from the power sector. On Tuesday, Paul firmly aligned himself with the science-denier camp. “While I do think man may have a role in our climate, I think nature also has a role,” Paul said. “The planet is 4.5 billion years old. We’ve been through geologic age after geologic age. We’ve had times when the temperature’s been warmer. We’ve had times when the temperature’s been colder. We’ve had times when carbon in the atmosphere has been higher. So I think we need to look before we leap.”

Paul at least got the age of the Earth right, before adopting a familiar point about pursuing an all-of-the-above energy strategy, suggesting that Obama has forgotten about fossil fuels. If we shut down all the coal power plants, Paul warned, “we would have a day where we wake up where our cities are very cold or very hot.”

Both Paul and Jeb Bush have played coy about their climate positions until this point. Bush, who has called climate change a threat, insisted at multiple points during the debate that he would repeal the Clean Power Plan and any Obama regulation on climate change, leaving the private sector to come up with a solution to global pollution. For a brief moment, Paul seemed to be considering joining the few Senate Republicans willing to say that climate change is a critical issue. He was one of 15 Republicans to vote for a conservative resolution in January admitting that humans play a role in climate change. In 2014, Paul told HBO’s Bill Maher, “There’s abundant evidence that carbon is increasing and has increased since the industrial age. All I ask for is that the solution has to be a balanced solution and that you have to account for jobs and jobs lost by regulation.”

Candidates sometimes look like they are progressing (haltingly) in the right direction in the climate debate. On Tuesday, Paul moved decidedly in the wrong direction.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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