Washington Senate Candidates and Climate Change

According to a September KING 5 poll, Patty Murray has a slim lead over Dino Rossi in the race for U.S. Senate here in Washington State. Given the current avalanche of GOP Senate candidates jumping over each other to claim the crown of king climate skeptic, I was curious where Murray and Rossi fit in the climate science consensus/criticism spectrum.

Murray, a vocal climate activist, is clearly in the consensus camp as you can see from the following statement from her campaign website (though she probably needs to add a comma somewhere since "less clean freshwater shortages" doesn't sound like such a bad thing to me, lol):

Climate change is real – scientists agree that it is happening and that there is a better than 90% chance that it is being caused by humans.  Climate change can mean more serious natural disasters and storms like Hurricane Katrina, less clean freshwater shortages and food production.  We owe it to our children and future generations to get this issue under control and soon.

I would categorize Rossi as falling in the "lukewarm-to-tepid" camp since he acknowledges the earth is warming but doesn't believe it is necessarily anthropognic in origin. Here's a typical quote:

I believe the Earth is warming. There is still debate in the scientific community about the level of human impact on climate change, which is why I think the more important question is what we are actually going to do in order to reduce carbon emissions.

Murray aligns closest to my own opinion on climate change, i.e. it is real, it is the result of human activity and the consequences could be dire if we don't do something about it. I'm happy to see Rossi's eyes aren't totally closed. Unfortunately I think his interests lie more in limiting the options for dealing with it (e.g. his opposition to cap-and-trade) rather than in actually solving the problem.

Things could have been worse because Rossi's position is light years ahead of the other major GOP candidates who lost out in our "top two" blanket primary. Former NFL football player Clint Didier, who was endorsed by Sarah Palin and finished in 3rd place, pulled no punches regarding climate change: "This global warming is a joke." When asked about a carbon tax or lid he said "We need more of it [carbon], to tell the truth". Not a particularly enlightened candidate. Businessman Paul Akers who finished a distant 4th in the polling was no better: "[Climate researchers] are not scientists. They are people with a political agenda... [Global warming is] part of the natural cycle." I don't trust anyone who throws out an entire branch of science and replaces it with a simple phrase like "natural cycle".

Bottom line: Murray's position on climate change is a big plus for me. I'll give Rossi a slight minus, not because he's 'almost right' (because he isn't) but because he deserves bonus points for not jumping on the hardcore denial bandwagon that seems popular in the GOP these days.