Raise your hand if you'd like to see a "top Republican" bowing to scientists

Do you recognize this guy? No, not from a post-office wall. What if I told you he's the number-three Republican in the Senate? And before you ask, no, there doesn't appear to be any video of him bowing to scientists.

by Ken

The title of the washingtonpost.com "PostPartisan" blogpost was so provocative that I couldn't resist: "Top Republican bows to scientists on climate change." I was so busy trying to think who "the" top Republican is that I had to pause to change gears when the webpage opened and I had no idea which Republican puss was staring out at me. Oh wait, it occurred to me, the title could mean either "the top Republican" or merely "a top Republican."

Ladies and germs, I give you . . . Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. Oh, quite grumbling. You were expecting maybe to see "Miss Mitch" McConnell or "Sunny John" Boehner or Rafael "Ted from Alberta" Cruz bowing to scientists? Gimme a break.

Before we get to the bowing, let's take some note of the author. Stephen Stromberg. At least I knew who John "Top Republican" Thune is. Stephen Stromberg is? Before we jump to the author's bio at the end, let's eavesdrop on the opening paragraph of the post (link onsite):

For too long, the country’s debate on climate change has been stuck on whether the phenomenon is happening at all, or on whether humans are responsible for it. As a Post editorial noted Monday, Republicans are mostly to blame for this, and key GOP leaders still seem unwilling to move the discussion forward now that they have won control of Congress.

Now here's the bio note:

Stephen Stromberg is a Post editorial writer. He specializes in domestic policy, including energy, the environment, legal affairs and public health.

Putting these two bits of text together, does anyone else suspect that our boy Steve wrote the editorial in question? Not that there's anything wrong with that. Apparently he really cares about this science and environment stuff. Let's just not assume that this post proves that anyone but the author read the editorial.

Now to business, namely the business of watching Top John bow to scientists. (As far as I know, there's no video of this bowing.) What's got our boy Steve all excited is that back in 2010 Top John said, on the subject of climate change:

Obviously, I think the question you have to ask yourself, one, is it occurring? And even if you say ‘yes’ to that, two, is human activity contributing to it? And even if you say ‘yes’ to that, then three is what are we going to do about it and at what cost?

Whereas yesterday, in the waning days of 2014, the following dramatic episode took place on Fox News Sunday (again, links onsite):

Asked about the overwhelming agreement among experts on the cause and trajectory of global warming, Thune began with a familiar GOP climate-change dodge: “Climate change is occurring, it’s always occurring.” But then he said this: “There are a number of factors that contribute to that, including human activity. The question is, what are we going to do about it and at what cost?”

Did you just fall out of your chair?

Now this is kind of subtle, and in case you're not adept at parsing Top Republican Talk, let's bring Steve in to explain the momentous significance of this:

In three sentences, the number-three Republican in the Senate admitted that human activity is affecting the climate and that this concern demands a policy response.

Yeah, okay, I'm not absolutely sure that saying that asking "what are we going to do about it and and at what cost?" necessarily qualifies as demanding a Republican policy response, and less still that it qualifies as bowing to scientists. Still, as our boy Steve notes, "It's much better than other recent GOP responses to questions on climate change, such as Mitch McConnell's 'I’m not a scientist.' "

And here's how Steve scores Top John's breakthrough yesterday, going back to his Three Questions of 2010 ("Is it occurring?" "Is human activity contributing to it?" "What are we going to do about it and at what cost?"):

[O]nce you get to “yes” on the first two, as Thune apparently has, the answer to the last question should be relatively simple for honest conservatives: The efficient, market-friendly approach to cutting dependence on greenhouse gases is pricing carbon dioxide emissions and allowing market forces to adapt the economy.

Steve allows that Top John's comments yesterday "might be merely another GOP attempt to justify doing too little without seeming anti-science." (Oh, you think?) But then he does a bit of triangulating, noting that "by contrast" with Miss Mitch's "I'm not a scientist," Top John's fire-breathing declaration "points in a sure direction: It will be ultimately untenable for Republicans to admit that global warming is a legitimate concern yet reflexively attack efforts to deal with it." He doesn't offer us a timetable on that "ultimately."

Again, I'm not aware of any video of any top Republican bowing to scientists.

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