AXIOS by Amy Harder 2/26/2019
Republicans should stop denying humans’ impact on climate change and start putting forth policies to address it, former Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich is set to say at a speech Tuesday night in British Columbia, Canada.
Why it matters: Kasich is a potential 2020 opponent of President Trump — and he represents the leading edge of a Republican Party slowly evolving away from a decade-long position denying that climate change is a real problem. Kasich revealed his plan for his speech in an exclusive interview with Axios Monday.
“This is like a call to arms. Let’s have conservatives have a discussion instead of being in denial that this is a problem. You can’t just be a science denier.â€
— John Kasich, former Ohio governor
Flashback: Kasich himself has evolved from when he was running in the 2016 GOP presidential primary. He said then that the overall human impact on climate change is unclear and that “we don’t want to destroy people’s job, based on some theory that is not proven.â€
When presented with those comments, Kasich responded: “Yeah, well you know what, we all evolve.†He went on to cite a federal government report, issued under the Trump administration, that laid out humans’ impact on climate change and the impacts of it. “As I see more and more evidence, especially from our government and scientists, you learn more. Let’s step it up.â€
He said his evolution on climate change is similar to that of his shifted position on guns after the Parkland shooting.
More:
https://www.axios.com/kasich-asks-republicans-to-stop-denying-climate-change-875bc4b0-a665-45ea-9a33-1cb0a1fd52fb.html