Marco Rubio addressed the climate change issue during last night's debate by saying that America is not a planet.
Sea levels are on the rise, which is predicted to cause great peril to his home state, but Rubio continued to be flip about the environment, kicking off Wednesday night's GOP presidential debate by making a joke about bringing his own water, since California — where the debate was held — is going through a drought.
It was an attempt at poking fun at himself for perhaps Rubio's biggest gaffe ever, but it also underlined the Florida senator's overall stance on the dangers of climate change.
.@MarcoRubio In California we have grown our economy (8th largest in world) while leading the fight against climate change #GOPdebate
— Kevin de Le?n (@kdeleon) September 17, 2015When the debate turned to the subject, Rubio seemed to first blame the Obama administration, then China, all while contradicting his past as a climate change skeptic.
When asked if he doesn't believe in addressing the climate change issue, Rubio said that something must be done, just not the way Obama has proposed. "We're not going to destroy our economy the way the left-wing government wants to," he said.
Rubio then tried to shift the bulk of the blame onto China, saying that the United States isn't even the biggest contributor to climate change (which is incorrect).
Then, he dropped his truth bomb.
“We're not going to make America a harder place to create jobs in order to pursue policies that will do absolutely nothing, nothing to change our climate,” Rubio said. “America is a lot of things, the greatest country in the world, absolutely. But America is not a planet.”
While it's hard to argue the fact that America is not a planet, it must be noted that solar energy jobs are now being created faster than jobs in the oil and gas industry.
But Rubio has remained resistant to tackling the climate change issue — even as his home state is at its mercy.
Since 2009, Rubio has received $281,716 from the oil and gas industry. In 2010, Koch Industries stepped up and gave Rubio $32,200, which was more money than any other Senate candidate got. This, in turn, got Rubio voting in favor of Koch, which is regarded as one of the biggest polluters in the country.
Since receiving the Koch's check, Rubio has made even more friends. Club for Growth, a political organization that promotes he idea that implementing climate change-friendly policies would cripple the economy, became one of his biggest campaign contributors, and Rubio was invited as an exclusive guest to speak at the Kochs' Secret Billionaire Summit.
After the White House released the findings from the National Climate Assessment last year, Rubio stepped up to the plate to lash out against science and reason.
Rubio questioned the scientists and said that all that dirty CO2 that's coming from nuclear plants and wrecking the environment really isn't all man's fault. "I think it's an enormous threat to say that every weather incident that we now read about is — or the majority of them are — attributable to human activity," Rubio told CNN.
Time and again, Rubio has voted against the environment, slowly making Florida disappear into the ocean with every vote while making 2007 Marco Rubio disappear into the ether.
Thanks for all of the support, kind words & encouragement tonight!
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) September 17, 2015
