Indianz.Com > News > Cronkite News: Republicans continue to deny impacts of climate change
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Amid heat waves and drought, Arizona Republicans reject expert consensus on climate change as ‘fake science’
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Cronkite News
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Last month was the hottest June on record in Phoenix, with an average temperature of 97 degrees. The city’s heat wave last summer, with 31 straight days at 110 degrees or above, blew past the 18-day record set in 1974.
With Rocky Mountain snowpack declining, the Colorado River system has been in drought for two decades. Around the country and globe, wildfires, floods, droughts and extreme weather have become more extreme, prolonged and frequent.
Climatologists have no doubt the climate is changing – for the worse, and because of human activities that trap greenhouse gases.
But Arizona Republicans in Congress reject the scientific consensus that the climate is changing, that human activity is the culprit, and that it may already have reached or passed a dangerous tipping point.
“Just because a scientist says something doesn’t mean it’s true,” first-term Rep. Eli Crane, R-Oro Valley, said during a brief interview at the U.S. Capitol.
“Since the 1970’s, `experts’ have been warning us, like some Mayan Sun god, that the Earth will soon die and everyone on it as well,” seven-term Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Bullhead City, wrote in a weekly newsletter in March. “I reject fake science. I reject death cult predictions and if I am going to put my faith into something it will be in Jesus Christ and fact-based science.”
Kari Lake, who faces Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in the July 30 U.S. Senate primary, is also openly skeptical.
“Newsflash, it’s hot in Arizona in the summer. This is how we prevent being overrun with people,” Lake told conservative radio host Garret Lewis on a podcast last August.
March 2023 had been unusually chilly, she added. The average in Phoenix was just 61.8 degrees, the coldest March in the city since 1991, according to the National Weather Service.
“So don’t tell me that we’re in some sort of a weird heating trend,” Lake said in that interview. “I don’t believe that for a minute. I’m not going to be afraid of the weather. I don’t believe people will fall for it.”
![Tempe, Arizona](https://indianz.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/16/TempeArizona-scaled.jpeg)
![Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport](https://indianz.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/16/PhoenixArizona-scaled.jpg)
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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