Palin's a Flip-Flopper on Climate Change

She made sense while governor; now, not so much
By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 15, 2009 1:46 PM CST
Palin's a Flip-Flopper on Climate Change
Sarah Palin during the campaign last year.   (AP Photo)

Back when Sarah Palin was the governor of Alaska, she was pragmatic and forward-looking on climate change, Eugene Robinson writes, and not the shrill, nonsensical reactionary we now know. She toyed with “carbon-trading markets,” set up a high-level commission on climate change, and acknowledged that the problem affected the “lifestyles and livelihoods of all Alaskans.” What happened? She became the “iconic leader of a populist movement.”

Palin used to be refreshingly candid, Robinson writes in the Washington Post. “Alaska's climate is warming,” she wrote in 2008, and “the current rate of warming is unprecedented.” But now she denounces Copenhagen even as the chairman of the Alaska sub-Cabinet she created plans to appear there, and “carbon-trading markets” are “cap-and-tax.” “Palin knows better,” Robinson writes, “but she has to fiddle her followers' chosen tune—not while Rome burns, but while Nome melts.” (More Sarah Palin climategate stories.)

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