New House Speaker Widens Partisan Climate Divide

Mike Johnson believes even less than his predecessor in an emergency that is alredy costing Americans many tens of billions of dollars each year. A climate change denier is now leading the House of Representatives.Photographer: Ting Sheng/Bloomberg via Getty Images Learning that new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson doesn’t believe humans have caused a climate emergency is about as shocking as learning that water is wet. He is an avowed MAGA Republican who may or may not believe Noah had dinosaurs on the Ark. Still, it represents a serious blow in the climate fight that most Americans support, at a moment when we can’t afford to waste time playing politics. Just ask taxpayers, who are seeing insurance rates skyrocket to cover the cost of protecting against climate-fueled disasters. It is now a fact about the United States, the wealthiest nation Earth as well as one of its biggest greenhouse-gas polluters, that a person who has suggested climate change is being caused by “ natural cycles” is second in the line of succession to be president. Johnson’s ascension from little-known representative from Louisiana risks even more deeply entrenching in American politics the false idea of established climate science as a matter of opinion or debate. Few other countries are so divided on this issue. It wouldn’t matter, except that the US should be leading the fight for change. Instead, it risks sinking deeper into paralysis at a time when it’s already moving far too slowly to avoid the worst impacts of planetary heating.