Tsk, tsk, GOP. Your presidential candidates have some explaining to do about their latest report cards.
The AP asked a panel of independent scientists to evaluate presidential candidates’ public comments on climate change, and — surprise! — the GOP candidates all flunked! And while nobody’s perfect, the Democratic candidates were practically honor roll students. For the Dems, Hillary Clinton topped the list at 94, followed by Martin O’Malley at 91, and Bernie Sanders at 87.
Eight climate and biological scientists graded for scientific accuracy what a dozen top candidates said in debates, interviews and tweets, using a 0 to 100 scale.
To try to eliminate possible bias, the candidates’ comments were stripped of names and given randomly generated numbers, so the professors would not know who made each statement they were grading. Also, the scientists who did the grading were chosen by professional scientific societies. …
For the Republicans, climate change came up more in interviews than in their four debates. But [Marco] Rubio did confront the issue in the Sept. 16 debate in a way that earned him bad grades from some scientists.
“We are not going to make America a harder place to create jobs in order to pursue policies that will do absolutely nothing, nothing, to change our climate, to change our weather, because America is a lot of things, the greatest country in the world, absolutely,” Rubio said. “But America is not a planet. And we are not even the largest carbon producer anymore. China is. And they’re drilling a hole and digging anywhere in the world that they can get ahold of.”
Shockingly, Marco “America Is Not A Planet” Rubio was not even at the bottom of the list. It wasn’t even Donald “Mexicans Are Rapists” Trump or Ben “I’m Actually A Teddy Bear” Carson, either. That honor goes to Ted Cruz, who received a whopping 6 out of 100. “This individual understands less about science (and climate change) than the average kindergartner,” climate scientist Michael Mann told the AP. “That sort of ignorance would be dangerous in a doorman, let alone a president.”
Top honors for the Republicans went to Jeb Bush, who scored a sub-par 64. He was followed by Chris Christie (54), John Kasich (47), Rand Paul (38), Carly Fiorina (28), Marco Rubio (21), Donald Trump (15), Ben Carson (13), and Cruz.
GOOOO TEAM! It is a remarkable achievement to get things so very wrong. Take a victory lap, guys! And if you fall off the corner, that’s because the world is flat.
