• Slug: BC-CNS-Climate Denial Congress. 1,240 words.
• File photos available (thumbnails, captions below).

By Amaia J. Gavica
Cronkite News

WASHINGTON – 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.”

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the highest it has been in 800,000 years, and the 12 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998.

The level of heat trapping CO2 has increased by about 40% since the 1700s, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which, like nearly all climate experts in academia and government, in the United States and abroad, points to industrialization and other human activity as major causes.

“Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gasses, have unequivocally caused global warming,” the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body created in 1988, wrote in its March 2023 report.

Global surface temperatures rose roughly 2°F in the previous century, the panel found, and “global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase,” blaming nearly all of the heating on “unsustainable energy use, land use and land-use change, lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production” as opposed to natural cycles or solar or volcanic activity.

Democrats find the denial exasperating, but also a political vulnerability for their opponents.

“Everyone who willfully denies the impacts of climate change is condemning the American people to a dangerous future and either is really, really dumb or has some other motive,” President Joe Biden said July 2, announcing initiatives to prepare for extreme heat this summer at an Emergency Operations Center in Washington. “How can you deny there’s climate change, for God’s sake?”

Former President Donald Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and like other Republicans, has resisted proposals to wean the country from fossil fuels – coal, oil and methane.

A Pew Research Center survey in January found views differ dramatically by party. About 12% of Republicans nationwide identify dealing with climate change as a top priority for Congress and the president to address, compared to nearly 60% of Democrats.

The Arizona Department of Water Resources says drought in the state has been “exacerbated by climate change.”

EPA reported in 2016 that Arizona had warmed about 2 degrees in the last century, leading to less snowpack to replenish reservoirs, less rain, faster evaporation, more wildfires and potential expansion of desert. Without improvements, EPA warned, Arizona’s infrastructure, health and environment will suffer.

Crane, a former Navy SEAL who started a business selling bottle openers made from shell casings, linked his skepticism on climate change to assertions from top scientists that COVID-19 vaccines were “completely harmless” – an assertion that many conservatives take issue with.

Republican colleagues in Congress from Arizona have expressed similar skepticism about climate change science.

In a 2016 candidate survey before winning his first term, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, told the Arizona Republic that he does not “believe climate change is occurring.”

“I do not think that humans have a significant impact on climate. The federal government should stop regulating and stomping on our economy and freedoms in the name of a discredited theory,” said Biggs, a lawyer now in his fourth term.

Biggs and aides ignored multiple attempts to determine whether his views have changed since then.

Reps. David Schweikert, R-Fountain Hills, and Debbie Lesko, R-Peoria, also ignored multiple interview requests.

Both are on record expressing doubts.

“I don’t see the data. When you think about the complexity of a worldwide system, and the amount of data you’d have to capture … how do you adjust for a sunspot?” Schweikert, who ran a family real estate business and now is in his seventh House term, said in a 2010 interview uncovered by Hill Heat, a climate newsletter. “How do you adjust for a hurricane and this and that? I think it’s incredibly arrogant for the Al Gores of the world to stand up and say the world’s coming to an end.”

He blamed “control freaks” who want to control his lifestyle for promoting fears of climate change.

Lesko stated similar views during a candidate debate in January 2018, before winning her seat that year in a special election.

“Is some of it, maybe, human-caused? Possibly. But certainly not the majority of it. I think it just goes through cycles and it has to do a lot with the sun. So no, I’m not a global warming proponent,” she said.

There is no evidence that Schweikert’s or Lesko’s views have changed despite 2023 breaking the record for warmest calendar year recorded.

According to NASA, the sun is not at all a cause for the global warming trend seen in recent times. NASA satellites that track solar energy that comes to Earth have documented no steady increase.

A 2020 survey of Arizona voters found overwhelming concern about the climate and desire for government to do more to address the problem.

The sixth Arizona Republican in Congress, freshman Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Tucson, called climate change a “key issue” when asked his views recently at the Capitol but pivoted to concern about the state’s natural wonders.

“Taking care of our environment has to be one of our priorities. When you have a state that is both as beautiful as it is, such a great attraction for people to come and visit and enjoy the outdoors and everything that we have to offer, we have to keep on protecting that. … So this is key for Arizona, this is key for quite frankly the nation and the entire world. So definitely a key issue for our region,” he said.

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