Rubio Is Asked About Climate Change: Ignorance Ensues

I have a hard time imagining a scenario in which Marco Rubio becomes the Republican nominee. That is likely to be completely obvious if he fails to win his home-state primary in Florida on Tuesday. That's why I'm reluctant to even talk about him. But his performance in last night's debate has me scratching my head at his ignorance and/or deceit.

Since the beginning, Rubio has been assumed to represent "moderate" Republicans and people have posited that he has a chance of appealing to young people - perhaps simply because of his age. But at last night's debate, he was finally asked to talk about climate change, something that is of great importance to young people. And it's hard to overstate how ignorant his response was. For example, how about this whopper:

But as far as a law that we can pass in Washington to change the weather, there's no such thing.

That misses on so many levels for such a short sentence! Of course there's "no such thing." That is why no one is proposing any laws that would attempt to change the weather. Rubio leaves us with a familiar conundrum: is he really stupid enough to think that anyone is actually suggesting that a law can change the weather, or is he merely lying as a way to distract us from the issue at hand? In the end, does it really matter?

Then, in talking about President Obama's actions to address climate change, Rubio made this statement that might have been relevant several years ago.

You know what impact it would have on the environment? Zero. Because China and India will still be polluting at historic levels.

That Paris climate accord folks like Rubio have been trashing since it was reached...does he even know what is in it? Does he have no idea that China and India have committed to reducing their carbon emissions and will not - in fact - be polluting at historic levels? Again - ignorance or lie? You tell me.

Rubio went on to make the usual Republican claim that Americans have to chose between a habitable planet and a healthy economy - something that is being proven false on a daily basis. But when Jake Tapper asked him to comment directly on whether humans are contributing to climate change, he laid out another whopper.

I would say there's no law we could pass that would have an impact on that.

I don't really think that Rubio wants to suggest that laws can't be passed to affect human behavior. And yet that's what he just implied.

How about this for a closer:

America is not a planet. It's a country.

I have no idea what he means by that. Of course, it's true. It's like saying, "the sky is blue." But what does that have to do with what we're talking about? Nothing.

Watching this exchange I came to one conclusion: if Rubio is any indication, Republicans REALLY don't want to talk about climate change during this election season. Obfuscate, distract, make meaningless assertions - that is what we'll see. In the process, they'll just look ignorant.