The New York Times had an interesting, but unsurprising, article last week on the fact that Tea Partiers don’t accept the validity of man-made climate change. As I said, hardly surprising, especially in light of the fact that from the beginning, the oil industry has set up the Tea Party movement to use its supporters as the front-line infantry in their battle against anything approaching even a modicum of increased regulation. I noticed how ingrained this was in September 2009, when I attended the first 9/12 Rally in DC. Protesters spoke at length about the socialistic evils of the market-based reforms of cap-and-trade-a rather wonkish topic I thought for a group that loves to rail about the educated elites.

From the Times article:

Those who support the Tea Party movement are considerably more dubious about the existence and effects of global warming than the American public at large, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted this month. The survey found that only 14 percent of Tea Party supporters said that global warming is an environmental problem that is having an effect now, while 49 percent of the rest of the public believes that it is. More […]