There's a lot of Republicans who may have in the past been critical of fellow Catholics who they call 'cafeteria Catholics' who don't follow the church's teachings - say, on abortion. But now, are they going to become 'cafeteria Catholics' themselves and not follow the church's teachings on climate change?

There's a lot of Republicans who may have in the past been critical of fellow Catholics who they call 'cafeteria Catholics' who don't follow the church's teachings - say, on abortion. But now, are they going to become 'cafeteria Catholics' themselves and not follow the church's teachings on climate change?

Many conservatives, I think, see action on climate change as really an attack on a way of life. That`s really a hard pill to swallow, that the whole way that I have created my life is wrong, you`re saying, that I shouldn`t have this house in the suburb, I shouldn`t be driving this car.

We added Medicare Part D to a system facing bankruptcy and gave no thought to means testing it.

So I'm a pretty conservative fellow, but not conservative enough for the Tea Party.

So when you're dealing with an existential threat like death or like climate change, if you see it as 'we are all toast anyway,' then denial is a pretty good way of coping.

In fact, NSF was the leading successful efforts to improve U.S. math and science education long before the Department of Education was even created.