Global warming denial driven mostly by the Tea Party

Greg Sargent: Some fascinating new findings from Pew Research suggest deep divisions among Republicans over whether global warming is happening:

Two-thirds of Americans (67%) say there is solid evidence that the earth has been getting warmer over the last few decades, a figure that has changed little in the past few years. While partisan differences over climate change remain substantial, Republicans face greater internal divisions over this issue than do Democrats.

Just 25% of Tea Party Republicans say there is solid evidence of global warming, compared with 61%of non-Tea Party Republicans.

Republican voters overall are evenly divided, 46-46, over whether global warming is happening, but this divide is driven by the lopsided difference between Tea Party and non-Tea Party Republicans on the question, with a solid majority of the latter in the global warming camp. “It’s not Democrat versus Republican, it’s Democrat and Republican versus the Tea Party,” Jeff Gohringer, spokesman for the League of Conservation Voters, tells me.

Just another example of how a shrill minority of nutjobs is driving our national conversation in completely self-destructive ways. Gerrymandering isn’t just a cheat, it’s a cancer.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]