Will the last sane Republican turn out the lights?

From TPM:

Jon Huntsman used to believe climate change is real. Now he’s not so sure.

In a move that’s sure to endear him to the conservatives who are starting to warm up to the former Utah governor, Huntsman said Tuesday under questioning from TPM that he now believes there’s “more debate yet to play out” before we can be sure climate change is really happening.

That’s certainly not the way Huntsman sounded waaay back in August, when he famously tweeted:

“To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”

That was part of an organized effort by Huntsman to be the sane one when it came to climate science. In an interview with Time, he said it this way:

“I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them.”

That sent conservative climate change deniers into a panic and helped transform Huntsman into the left’s favorite Republican candidate for president.

It’s worth noting at this point that Huntsman never really was all that liberal when it came to climate change. He accepted it as real, sure, but promised he’d never do anything about it because it would be too expensive.

Anyway, now he’s talking about the conspiracy theories that have been a mainstay of the climate change denier community for years and backing off his previous contention that climate science is real.

I'm sure Huntsman thought he'd stand out in the Republican Presidential campaign by being the sane one (relatively-speaking). Unfortunately, he discovered that today's Republican Party abhors sanity.

When extremists take control, you can't be too extreme. The danger is in appearing too moderate, too sensible, too rational.

"I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them."

If anything, Huntsman understated that. Virtually 100% of climate scientists say global warming is happening. It's just that "only" 97% to 98% think that it's primarily caused by human activity.

If you choose to disbelieve the scientists who specialize in this field, it's clear that you're just believing whatever you want to believe. After all, these experts rely on evidence. If the deniers actually had evidence that the scientists were wrong, scientists would change their minds.

Huntsman is a right-winger, so he was never that sane. But he was the one Republican who accepted science. Not any longer, I guess. The Republican Party has become completely anti-science, and if you want to get somewhere with people like that, you've got to throw reality under the bus.