Richard Cohen : “It is a stunning thing, when you think about it: GOP conservatives adopting a position of studied ignorance [on climate change.]”  

“Politics, not science, may firm up both sides of the debate. A Pew Research Center poll last November found that 67 percent of Americans think the planet is indisputably getting warmer … but among tea party types it’s 25 percent. Maybe more to the point, only 9 percent of tea party members think ‘human activity’ has contributed to global warming.”  

“With climate change ranking low in urgency in a different Pew poll, there’s not much percentage in moderate Republicans standing up for science and common sense. Paulson et al. are to be commended for their effort, but they are — as Mike Bloomberg found out years ago — in the wrong party.”  

“What possesses the tea party on climate change? Some of it has to do with traditional anti-establishment sentiment … Mostly, though, its position is rooted in a raging antipathy toward (hiss!) big government … tea party types would rather — almost literally — burn in a kind of hell than submit to Washington or, God forbid, the United Nations.”