Chris Hayes was blunt Wednesday night while discussing the Republican Party’s climate policy, calling the GOP’s opposition to even weak measures to deal with the climate crisis “deranged.”
“This strategy is literally, just actively hurl ourselves into the fire. Let a thousand hurricanes bloom,” Hayes said, warning viewers that it will become national policy should a Republican win the presidency in 2024.
The inspiration for the commentary was Hurricane Idalia, which slammed into Florida this week on its way up the eastern seaboard. The storm intensified rapidly, a direct result of climate change raising the temperature of the ocean that makes tropical storms more frequent, powerful, and dangerous.
As Hayes noted, the mainstream position of the Republican Party is staunch opposition to doing anything about the problem. Indeed, while Hayes didn’t mention him, at the recent Republican Primary Debate, Vivek Ramaswamy outright embraced climate denialism, insisting — falsely — that climate change is a hoax.
But Hayes focused on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in light of the damage his state took from Idalia. DeSantis, Hayes noted, has rejected hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to help homeowners make their homes more energy efficient. And in a clip Hayes played, DeSantis outright said he rejects such policies purely out of opposition to “left wing” outcomes.
The rejection is just insane nihilism on one level. It’s hard to believe that he’s doing this but of course, Ron DeSantis turned against the COVID vaccines,” Hayes reminded.
“His position on climate change is essentially vaccine denialism at civilizational scale,” Hayes said, shortly after clarifying that “he’s not an outlier. It’s is the whole Republican Party.”
Hayes noted a strategy for opposing any attempt to mitigate climate change, put together by the Heritage Foundation and embraced by effectively the entire slate of GOP presidential primary candidates. The plan, Hayes noted, “calls for shredding regulations to curb greenhouse gas pollution, cars, oil and gas wells and power plants, dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels.”
“I mean, that’s not even like turning against the vaccine. That’s like saying you’re gonna give everyone COVID. Like door to door coughing on people,” Hayes said.
“That’s where we are. They are not in the realm of reasonable policy. This is not a difference of opinion on how quickly or how best to meet the targets and curbing emissions or the trade offs we may face. This strategy is literally, just actively hurl ourselves into the fire. Let a thousand hurricanes bloom,” Hayes continued.
“It is deranged. It is almost hard to understand what it is, that it is the reality. But it is the consensus view of the Republican Party. Whose nominee will have a 50/50 chance to win the presidency.”
Watch the whole clip above now.
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