This week was huge in climate change, with Donald Trump more or less securing the GOP nomination after his resounding victory in the Indiana primary compelled Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and then Ohio Gov. John Kasich to drop from the race.
In our climate farewell (for now) to Cruz, we reviewed climate change statements made along the course of the campaign, including his long-held assertion that no warming is occurring.
“The last 18 years, if you look at the satellite data, there is no significant recorded warming whatsoever,” Cruz said in October. “Now mind you, their computer models show that there should be enormous warming except for the fact that the satellite data are not measuring that warming.” He went on to call climate change “the perfect pseudoscientific theory… because it can never be disproven, whether it gets hotter or colder, wetter or drier, it’s always changing.”
Kasich’s campaign struck a different tone, as he advocated for a balance between protecting the environment and growing the economy, calling the two goals “not inconsistent with one another.”
“I do believe we contribute to climate change, but I don’t think it has to be either you are for some environmental stringent rules or you aren’t going to have any jobs. The fact is you can have both.”
Meanwhile, Trump continues to promise clean coal jobs for those who want them.
“I’m a free-market guy, but not when you’re getting killed,” Trump said at a rally. “Look at steel, it’s being wiped out. Your coal industry is wiped out, and China is taking our coal.”
“We’re going to get those miners back to work,” Trump promised without sharing details for how. “The miners of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week, Ohio and all over are going to start to work again, believe me. They are going to be proud again to be miners.”
He also vowed, “we’re going to have clean coal and we’re going to have plenty of it. We’re going to have great, clean coal. We’re going to have an amazing mining business.”
“You know, you aren’t allowed to use hairspray anymore because it affects the ozone,” Trump joked after accepting an honorary hardhat. “Hairspray’s not like it used to be. It used to be real good.”