Ken Berwitz
CUOMO: Very often you picture yourself and pitch yourselfas, look, I\’m a new generation. I see things a different way. I speak for thefuture of this country.
One of the departures from that image is where you are onclimate change. You spoke about it last night, you spoke about what practicallycan be done to make a difference with what you say is the weather. Why notembrace the science, though? You didn\’t speak to that specifically last night.The science to 99 percent of the community is clear, it\’s something that\’s seenas a future perspective. Why don\’t you share it?
RUBIO: Because, number one, okay, yeah, there is a consensusamong scientists around the world that humans are contributing to what\’shappening in our climate. What there\’s no consensus on is how much of thechanges that are going on are due to human activity, in essence it\’s asensitivity argument.
And as a policy maker, here\’s why that matters. Because thesepeople pushing this are acting like it\’s some sort of a religious tenet theywant us to admit. You know, here\’s the bottom line: we don\’t know how much ofit is due to human activity.
That\’s relevant in the policy world, because they are askingme to support public policies that, by the own admission of the climateactivists, these climate policies that they want us to adopt would not have ameasurable impact on the ecology or the environment now or for the foreseeablefuture. Meaning in my lifetime, yours, or my children\’s. On the other hand,economists tell us that
CUOMO: You get painted denier, though, senator. You getpainted as a denier.
RUBIO: Sure. By the people who want us to say yes or no.Well, they can paint me any way they want, but the bottom line is, what I won\’tadmit is that the policies that they want will do anything for our environment.
CUOMO: But on the science you can say yes or no.
RUBIO: It won\’t do anything for our environment. Yeah, butlook, climate change is measurable. Is the sea level rising? You can measurethat. You can measure whether sea level is rising. That\’s not the question youshould be asking a policymaker.
The question you should be asking a policymaker is: what canwe do in government to affect the rise of sea levels? And the answer is “oh,pass these laws we want you to pass.” So I asked the environmentalists andothers who are supporting those laws, “well, how many inches of feet of sealevel rise will that law prevent?” And there answer is, it won\’t prevent any.
And then I ask the economists and they say it will have areal impact on our economy. So they are asking me to support public policiesthat will do nothing to affect the environment but will have a direct andimmediate impact on our economy. I think that\’s a terrible tradeoff. I don\’tthink that\’s a good way to go forward. So, anyone who stands for that is calleda denier? Well, you know, these guys are off on their own crusade here, butit\’s just not good public policy.
That is as impressive, informative an answer as you are going to find on this subject.
