One surprise to me during the recent GOP presidential primary debate was when Vivek Ramaswamy called climate change “a hoax,” some in the roomful of GOP supporters booed him. He has been trying to become the previous president’s mini-me on these issues. His plan has been to ingratiate himself with Trump supporters and position to take the bulk of them if the pending criminal trials go badly for the former president. This significant change in GOP sentiment, represented by a GOP audience booing candidates who spin climate change off as a hoax, has been showing up in polls. Particularly, Republican young people have accepted man-made climate change is real and not a hoax.

Mathematicians and physicists have proven man-made climate change by the numbers. There is no ideological solution, instead requiring science-based policy actions. Considering how taboo the subject of man-made climate change has been in the past with the core GOP, many were surprised that the question would even be asked at the debate. Asked by the moderator of the debate, “How will you as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican Party calm fears that the Republican Party doesn’t care about climate change?”

None spoke to the heart of the question or directly answered. Vivek’s answer reinforced the premise of the question.

GOP’s lack of acceptance of the global warming threat is also a big reason why fewer young people become Republicans. Republicans tend to be older and therefore less threatened by climate change, seeing it as a problem for the next generations. Wrong or right, most baby-boomers are not going to live long enough either way. The problem is that we need to be proactive now and cannot wait long enough for the old Republicans to die before they act. This will become another general election problem for Republicans.

While there is much to criticize about Biden’s climate policy … what is the GOP alternative? If they deny the existence of a problem, then there is nothing to fix so no alternative is required. Vivek’s plan was to burn more carbon fuel and bet the farm that contrary to the science the purposed threat is not real. Attacking the science only worked for a while until denial lost traction to reality.

Another nuance of the Republican response to climate change that I have noted is while the party mantra has been to diss man-made climate change, GOP business and industry are the ones who invest in, develop and promote most of Biden’s climate subsidies. They are all over implementing Biden’s climate policies. The financial incentives are gaining attraction. Where I live, it is Republicans who are behind most ethanol plants and CO2 carbon sequestration. They are the core investors in Biden’s tax credits and even EV development. To complete the irony, it is usually a rare combination of MAGA populists who hate government institutions in general joining left-leaning environmental activists like the Sierra Club who are together making most of the noise in opposition to CO2 pipelines.

Another of Vivek’s debate claims was that “more people are dying because of bad climate change policies than they are of climate change.” That sent the fact-checkers into a furious Pinocchio measuring mode. It is an outrageously distorted conclusion of the result of use of fossil-fuels. It flips the logic over so that fighting climate change is deadly.

Institutions do the studies on the impact of climate change. There is no institutional study that remotely supports Vivek’s claim. The populist mindset is that institutions are not to be believed, so that neutralizes their study conclusions such as one by Harvard that determined that climate change is responsible for one of five deaths worldwide. Statements such as this one by Vivek were made to get attention, and it worked. Half of a GOP focus group watching the debate thought Vivek won. After all, he wears a hat with the word “Truth.” on it.

Climate Change footnote: The average temperature in Phoenix Arizona was above 110 degrees every day of July with lows above 90 degrees, both new records. That was 7 degrees above average. Despite “heat denialism” from ideologues, Maricopa County brought in new refrigerated storage containers for cadavers. One of our bus drivers in Alaska said he was from Phoenix … with a smile. While the Arctic ice melt is occurring pretty much as modeled, Greenland’s ice-melt is accelerating. Much of this is about their improving ability to measure things such as the interface grounding between the ice sheet and ocean. The most recent surprise that scientists were not expecting is the retreat of ice in Antarctica. That continent had been holding steadier until this year when Antarctic ice reached a record low. An area equal in size to Mexico did not freeze. Scientists say that the words “unprecedented or astonished” are not descriptive enough for the event. When ice melts, more sunlight is absorbed, which further heats the planet. It flows in a loop. Winter temps in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay set record winter highs. There is increasing concern over the record warm ocean temps, record ice melt on the poles and Greenland and the Atlantic current. Scientists are concerned that the Atlantic Gulf stream, which is the size of 8,000 Mississippi rivers, may collapse, the first time that would have happened in at least 12,000 years. If it collapses, it could lower temperatures by up to 10 or 15 degrees in Europe and lead to rising sea levels in the eastern U.S. It would also disrupt rain that billions rely on for agriculture. It would cause a food production disaster for the world which would mean that we are in the right business, likely in the right place, to fill the resulting desperate food demand.