Currently — August 24, 2023: Every single candidate denied climate change in first Republican presidential debate

The weather, currently.

It’s my excruciating duty to report that climate denial is alive and well in the year 2023.

With less than 15 months until Election Day, in the middle of what’s likely to be Earth’s hottest year since human civilization began, Republican presidential candidates gathered on a 100°F day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to talk about who would be the best person to beat Joe Biden — the self-proclaimed climate president.

It didn’t go well.

Moderators wasted no time in inviting a Gen-Z audience member to ask a climate question at the very beginning of the debate: “Polls consistently show that young people’s number one issue is climate change. How will you, as president, calm their fears that the Republican Party doesn’t care about climate change?”

The responses were agonizing. Trying to one-up his fellow challengers, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy went full climate hoaxer. Chris Christie insulted him for being a person of color. And no one raised their hand when the moderator asked who believed that human activities are causing climate change. (Spoiler: They are.)

That a major national political party anywhere in the world is considering nominating a full-throated climate denier should be a scandal. That it’s in the country most responsible for climate change is an outrage.

—Eric Holthaus

What you can do, currently.

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