There are hopeful signs that the Republican Party might be moving away from its near-total denial of climate change and its opposition of measures to mitigate it. Recently, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) declared that climate change is real and promised a Republican alternative to the Green New Deal. And Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has proposed a five-year “new Manhattan Project” to jump-start clean energy development.
As a lifelong Republican, I hope that these developments signal a return to the GOP's affirmative role on environmental issues. Among the things that I have found particularly troubling and disappointing about President Trump's dominance of the GOP has been the party's rejection of its century-old tradition of leadership on these matters.
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