Marco Rubio gave a word salad interview on CNN on Sunday morning regarding climate change. On one hand, he acknowledges that it is real, but he doesn't think studies can show how much mankind contributes (not true) and he doesn't think that making drastic changes is a good idea because it would hurt our economy too much. So strong economy is better than, you know, still having a viable planet for our grandchildren and great grandchildren to live on in 100 years?

TAPPER: Speaking of experts, we can't specifically say that Hurricane Michael was so strong and devastating because of climate change, but there is scientific consensus that warmer waters are making storms such as Michael more devastating. U.N. outlined a dire global forecast, that Florida could lose more than 1 million homes by the end of the century due to rising sea levels because of climate change, which they say is man made. What do you say to constituents who ask why are you not one of the leaders in congress on this issue?

RUBIO: I would say that's not true. We are. for example, we funded the study. Sea level rise and changes in the climate are measurable. I don't think there's a debate about whether that's happening. You can measure that. The secondary aspect is how much of that is due to human activity and from a policymaker, the question is, what policies can we change to deal with that human activity? That's where the debate really has been.

I confront it two ways. The sea level is rising. We know that. You can measure that. That's not something that anyone is debating , That's why I pushed for mitigation because the insurance place is going to start pricing this in. You better have answers on places like Miami Beach here in South Florida and the like. The second question about how much is human activity contributing towards that, what percentage of that is due to human activity and third question, what laws can we change? That's the more complicated one, especially the third one. Some of the things they're asking for is already happening. If you look at u.s. today, we're cleaner than we used to be. natural gas is a clean source. Nuclear clean. But you have to fight the same people to approve that.

TAPPER: Do you believe it is, at least, in part man made?

RUBIO: Humanity and its behavior, scientists say, is contributing to that. I can't tell you to what percentage is contributing and many scientists would debate the percentage contributable to man versus normal fluctuations, but there's a rise in sea level, temperatures are warmer in the waters than they were 50, 80, 100 years ago. That's measurable. I don't think there's an honest debate about this. The response to me is what can we do about it?

TAPPER: In 20 years will you be able to say to your children and my children, these are the three, four things I pushed for in congress to help mitigate this factor?

RUBIO: Sure. Certainly mitigating sea level rise. No matter what we do with laws, if tomorrow we stopped all -- say we went to all solar panels and did all that stuff, which is not realistic, this trend would still continue. so we'll have to do something about the impact that it's having on low-level coastal areas. That means mitigation. How we manage water. we're all over that. we've been working on that very hard and continue to. Strategies to mitigate against those factors that are going to be in place no matter what happens with our energy policy. I'm also not going to destroy our economy. There's a reality and balance on that end of it that we need to be focused on.

Spoken like a true Republican - screw the people and the land and the animals. Let's focus on the economy. Because who needs the first 3 things if we have MONEY!