Wisconsin GOP Senate Candidate Ron Johnson Says Climate Change Unproven

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
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Another day, another GOP candidate in denial about the scientific facts of climate change. This election season in the U.S. has been overrun with GOP and Tea Party-backed candidates who deny the existence of global warming,ย and therefore willingly ignore and denigrate science as aย whole.

The latest example is Wisconsin GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, Ron Johnson, who calls climate changeย โ€œunproven.โ€

โ€œThe science of global warming is unproven,โ€ he said. โ€œIt just is,โ€ย Johnson told The Associated Press onย Thursday.

โ€œIโ€™m not even sure if, if it were a fact, whether we could do anything about it anyway,โ€ Johnson said.

This isnโ€™t a major change of heart for Johnson, who called global warming โ€œlunacyโ€ earlier this summer. ย He has labeled any and all who subscribe to the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and driven by human activity โ€œcrazy.โ€ He has described legislative efforts to address global warming pollution as โ€œa foolโ€™sย errand.โ€

Hereโ€™s a video of Johnson saying all that, plus this: โ€œItโ€™s far more likely that itโ€™s just sunspot activity or something just in the geologic eons of time where we have changes in the climate.โ€ ย Note also his response at the end to the question about what he thinks CO2 does, โ€œI think itโ€™s sucked down by trees and helps trees grow.โ€

Thereโ€™s your science lesson for today, kids, courtesy of the GOP scienceย department.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party put together a mashup mocking Johnsonโ€™s various statements on climate change:ย 

Johnson is running against incumbent Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, whose campaign office was quick to declare Johnsonโ€™s views โ€œout of touch withย reality.โ€

โ€œHis belief that he knows better than most of the scientists in the world is dangerous,โ€ said Feingold campaign spokesman John Kraus.

Dangerous and entirely baseless, but unfortunately all too common these days as the right wing continues its war on science and reason. ย ย 

As RL Miller writes in her latest โ€˜Climate Zombiesโ€™ installment at Grist, โ€œtheir stupid has gone viral. And if they win, humanity loses.โ€

With just four weeks left to go until voters head to the polls, the GOPโ€™s anti-science, climate denial movement rages on. For a complete look at the cast of science-hating characters, be sure to follow RL Millerโ€™s ongoing โ€˜Climate Zombiesโ€™ series tracking every Republican candidate for House, Senate, and governor who doubts, denies, or derides the science of climateย change.ย 

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
Brendan is Executive Director of DeSmog. He is also a freelance writer and researcher specializing in media, politics, climate change and energy. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Grist, The Washington Times and other outlets.

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