This remarkable article from Talking Points Memo and its follow up from underlines the embarassing position the GOP still finds itself in.
Brian Merchant summarises at Treehugger:
Case in point: the GOP is publicly claiming that climate change legislation would cost each American family more than $3,100 a year, citing research done by MIT. Thing is, the very researcher who conducted the study personally contacted the GOP, alerting them to the fact that his findings clearly state that the cost to families would only be $340 a year. So what did the GOP do?
Ignored him.
After 8 years of Bush’s meddling with science by falsifying or watering down documents to suit his ideology and denying Climate Change because of the implications for big-oil sponsors. Some of us thought the GOP might be chastened into acknowledging such over-arching global phenomena like Climate change and work to finding free-market solutions but apparently not.
What concerns me most is that the GOP will be able to get away with this, there is still a real issue particularly in the US that still doesn’t believe Climate Change is linked to man-kind, and the GOP remarkable stance, seen recently by Michael Steele is not only embarassing but breathtakingly irresponsible.
How long before they face up to reality? Because they can slow the debate down with their misinformation but they will ultimately lose it and then miss out on the opportunity to shape the legislation itself, but then again winning doesn’t seem to be high on the the Republican radar.*
* In no way am I trying to jinx NY-20, where they may actually win, but fingers crossed they don’t.
UPDATE
Think Progress covers some dissent over the issue within Republican ranks, from Republicans for Environmental Protection.
