Monday, February 08, 2010

Cal GOP candidates for governor promise not to fight climate change

It might not seem strange in general for powerful Republicans to wage war against science by promising not to fight climate change, but it's a little different for Steve Poizner and Meg Whitman to do so in the Republican primary for governor.  These are two moderate Republicans running against each other, with no strong conservative rival, both promising to suspend California's main climate change law, AB32, which had been signed and has continued support of our moderate Republican governor.  I even voted for Poizner for statewide office over an uninspired hack that the Democrats nominated.  Maybe I should've gone for the hack.

More info about their stupidities here.  AFAIK they're not denying climate change but just refusing to do anything about it.  State laws like AB32 might be less important if we get strong federal action, but we shouldn't count on it, and the existence of state laws will make those states' congressional reps more interested in broader nationwide action.  This isn't a minor sideshow.  While it will be exceedingly difficult for a non-movie star Republican to win the governor's race, nothing is impossible.

At least as important as all this is a proposed voter initiative (see above link) to fool voters into suspending AB32 until California unemployment drops back to 2006 levels, which could be many years in the future.  It's a pretty clever design by evil people who know they can't just kill the law outright, so we'll have to watch it.

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