Editor's note: This editorial has been updated to reflect that Resources for the Future is not a part of Stanford University. The Sun regrets the error.
Last week's decision by the U.S. Senate to expedite construction of the Keystone XL pipeline was notable for mostly political reasons. It demonstrated Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's new clout and set up a veto by President Barack Obama, which is likely to stand given that the Senate's 62-36 vote is not enough for an override. But it also may be remembered as this: The last gasp of climate change denial politics.
That may sound like wishful thinking, but a new poll suggests that Americans are not the climate change skeptics that conservatives believe. The survey released by The New York Times, Stanford University and the Resources for the Future environmental research group found that two-thirds of Americans say they'll vote for political candidates willing to fight climate change.
This is particularly true for voters who identify themselves as Democrats and independents, but it's also a position held by 48 percent of Republicans, according to the poll. That's quite a turnaround for the GOP given that in 2012, all but one of the candidates running for president from that side of the aisle were wholly uninterested in reducing greenhouse gases. And the one who was, former U.S. Ambassador to China and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., didn't make it past the New Hampshire primary.
That shift in attitude has already been in evidence given the mantra, "I'm not a scientist," offered in recent months by such likely 2016 Republican presidential candidates as Sen. Marco Rubio and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal among others in response to questions about global warming, suggesting that somehow they are not qualified to judge the impact of human activity on climate. The trend has produced considerable fodder for late-night political humorists on cable television, who observed the party's failure to give similar deference to physicians over matters related to women's reproductive health. But it also marks a significant shift from outright denying climate change to sidestepping the issue.
This is hardly surprising given that 2014 was the hottest recorded year on Earth, surpassing runner-up 2010. The 10 warmest years since record-keeping began in 1880 have all taken place since 1997. And while this doesn't mean that every spot on earth is hotter every day (weather doesn't work like that, as we still have seasons and variations in temperatures and other factors), the trend hasn't been lost on the public.
Of course, that doesn't mean Republicans have fully caught up with scientists regarding climate change. Another poll released last week, this one by the Pew Research Center, found that while Democrats and independents see human activity as the primary culprit, more Republicans point the finger to natural variations. That is still kind of shocking given that 87 percent of scientists questioned in the same poll blame human activity as the chief problem.
As discouraging as it may be to see how many Americans are willing to dismiss the views of scientists, a point underscored by the Pew results, the more encouraging finding is that people are still capable of learning. We suspect, for instance, that the recent outbreak of measles traced to Disneyland will cause families to reexamine their views over the necessity of vaccinations. It's unfortunate that it required an eight-state outbreak to do so, but we live in an age when the uneducated and potentially destructive view of a few can rocket around the globe as fast (and as self-assuredly) as those of people who actually know what they are talking about.
Yet the truth eventually catches up, it just takes time. Today's "I'm not a scientist" response will eventually evolve into a cautious acknowledgment and eventually, acceptance. Witness the GOP's evolution on the rights of same-sex individuals. What was once an outright hostility toward gays has softened, and overt discrimination is no longer fashionable. So it will be with climate change despite the best efforts of deep-pocketed special interests like the Koch brothers. Just as flat Earth believers didn't abruptly disappear after the voyage of Christopher Columbus, ignorance has never been swept away overnight.
If recent polling on voters' attitudes toward climate change is any indication, the next president may well follow Mr. Obama's lead in fighting against what is easily the planet's most pressing environmental threat. As such, the Keystone vote was more likely a last hurrah for the politics of climate change denial than a vision for the nation's energy future.