‘It’s Called Summer’: GOP Brushes Off Record Heat Wave

Unless you’ve been living underground or have a vested interest in turning a blind eye to reality, you know that climate change has sent temperatures soaring to dangerous levels around the planet this summer.

Two global climate organizations on Thursday confirmed that July is on track to be the single hottest month on record. It is also likely the hottest monthlong stretch in 120,000 years. Nearly 200 million people — 60% of the U.S. population — are currently under an extreme heat or flood advisory.

But as usual, Republican climate deniers are quick to dismiss the dire impacts.

“There is a very scientific word for this: It’s called summer,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told HuffPost when asked about the heat on Thursday. “It’s no hotter right now than it’s ever been. I’ve been in this heat all my life in July and August as a football coach. This world’s not heating up, come on.”

Tuberville coached college football before entering politics and has no apparent scientific background. Yet the lack of knowledge in the field doesn’t keep him from confidently pooh-poohing the work of thousands of scientists around the world. Last month, as much of the U.S. Northeast was blanketed in thick smoke from Canadian wildfires, Tuberville deployed a similar response: “We’ve had fires for all of our life, come on.”

Make no mistake, humans have pushed the planet into uncharted territory. Devastating heat waves have plagued the U.S., Europe and Asia in recent weeks. The extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica is at an all-time low. Sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic are at a record high. In the Florida Keys, hot tub-level marine temperatures have triggered widespread coral bleaching, and scientists have scrambled in recent days to rescue hundreds of corals before they perish.

During a speech Thursday about the extreme heat gripping the U.S., President Joe Biden said the impacts of global climate change are undeniable.

“I don’t know anybody who honestly believes climate change is not a serious problem,” he said.

There are, in fact, plenty.

“Only in Washington will they try to find an excuse to take something that’s been going on for hundreds of years … to promote their crazy left agenda,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told reporter Pablo Manríquez in The New Republic this week when asked about the link between human-induced global warming and the crushing heat.

“Southern Louisiana, it’s always hot,” Scalise added. “Thank God for air conditioning.”

Last month, Senate Republicans heard from a fossil fuel advocate at a weekly closed-door meeting who argued that the benefits of using fossil fuels outweigh the harms. GOP senators representing states reliant on oil and gas industries ate up his speech, carrying his signed book back to their offices.

“It’s hot for sure, but we also know that weather cycles,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said. “What we do know about them is they’ve been going on for a long time. How much we can impact them — that’s the question. I doubt we can.”

Asked if extreme heat is linked to climate change, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said: “I don’t think anybody knows.”

Other Republicans acknowledged that the climate may be changing as a result of human activity. But they argued that efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the West would prove ineffective as long as big emitters like China fail to act.

“You can plausibly say that the increased amount of carbon in the atmosphere is trapping heat,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). “All we’re talking about is how to reduce that. Whatever the U.S. does is going to be marginal as long as China continues to emit.”

On Capitol Hill, the GOP is advancing an appropriations bill that would gut funding for federal environmental agencies, mandate additional oil and gas lease sales both onshore and offshore, torpedo protections for wild animals, and rescind more than $9 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature climate law that Democrats passed last year.

Right-wing groups recently crafted a 920-page “battle plan” — dubbed Project 2025 — to guide a future Republican administration in dismantling environmental regulations and stymying federal climate action.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party is attacking the Biden administration’s effort to make home appliances, including air conditioners and dishwashers, more efficient. Fox News and other right-wing media have dutifully dubbed the federal effort as Biden’s “war on appliances.”

Increasing the production of planet-warming fossil fuels, inevitably driving temperatures even higher, and then escaping that heat with an inefficient air conditioner — that’s the future the GOP is fighting for.

Democrats said the historic clean energy investments they passed last year are already making an impact, not only in reducing emissions but also in changing minds in red states with new green energy jobs and the wave of manufacturing.

“There’s plenty of no-nothingism in this town now,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said. “It’s perfectly acceptable in certain circles to ignore the reality of the world as it is, and I just think that’s really dangerous.”

“We’re a country that’s flourished because for a long time, we’ve believed in science and we’ve followed facts,” Heinrich continued. “Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”