During the last question of the night at the Flordia GOP presidential debate on CNN, moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Rick Santorum why he was the candidate most likely to defeat President Obama. Santorum explained his differences with Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, giving a laundry list of policy contrasts, perhaps most notably on climate change. “Cap and trade!” Santorum exclaimed. “Both of them bought into the global warming hoax!”

One of the issues Newt Gingrich is most vigorously defending on the campaign trail is his position on climate change, following the advertisement he filmed several years ago for Al Gore‘s nonprofit organization alongside Nancy Pelosi. Gingrich has said repeatedly over the course of this campaign that he considers the ad the biggest mistake of his political career, but his opponents are still using the video in their attack ads.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is taking the momentum of his endorsement by Christine O’Donnell and running with it, following it up with the release of a stale attack ad that highlights one of Newt Gingrich‘s momentary brushes with sane policy, in this case his support for legislation to fight global climate change. Never mind that Gingrich has since refudiated his Pelosi playdate, doesn’t Mitt realize that Ron Paul already made this ad, and made it about 11 times better?

Republican bubble candidate Jon Huntsman nullified two of the things that set him apart from frontrunners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney yesterday when he told a group at the Heritage Foundation that “the scientific community owes us more” on climate change, and that “there’s not enough information right now to be able to formulate policies.”

He staked out the “sane candidate” territory in August, and as a tracking video shot by American Bridge PAC in late October shows, Huntsman has no wiggle room on this flip.

In the latest installment of What Divisive Political Issue Has Mitt Romney Suddenly Changed His Position On This Week?, Chris Wallace and the Fox News Sunday panel parsed Romney’s words last week when he claimed we do not know what causes global warming, when he had stated the opposite several months ago.

While speaking at an event in Pittsburgh, Mitt Romney said he questioned the science behind global warming and opposed climate legislation. “‘My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet,” Romney said. “And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”

Rick Perry slammed Mitt Romney‘s pro-environmental record in a new web ad calling the former Massachusetts governor and President Obama “Carbon Copies” when it came to regulating cap and trade. The video released online highlights a Wall Street Journal article that said Romney hired one of the state’s most prominent environmentalists and his state was the first to set carbon dioxide emission caps on power plants. A chyron pops up that reads “Romney implemented job killing carbon caps”, behind an ominous music track.

Former Vice President Al Gore went on The Colbert Report Tuesday to promote his global warming solutions program, The Climate Reality Project, but in the process, accidentally outed Stephen Colbert as “your character.” Colbert incredulously shot back, “My character? What the hell are you talking about, sir?” Earlier in the interview, Colbert brought up Rick [...]

Yesterday on Fox News’ The Five, a segment was devoted to discussing whether or not Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign was already over. The reason: he’d “admitted” to believing in evolution and climate change. This morning, Poynter posted a great essay about how objective journalists can handle stories about Huntsman and Rick Perry. The problem, the essay finds, is that those stories necessitate reporting that scientists do, in an overwhelming majority, believe in man-made climate change and that makes the journalist appear to be biased against conservatives.

Wait, what? Since when did reporting a fact of science become political?

Rush Limbaugh admits that it’s hot outside but reminds his listeners that it’s summertime, you know, the time of year when nobody should be shocked you need to wear shorts and t-shirts. Yet Rush is annoyed that many in the media continue to talk about “record” heat waves across the country, which according to Rush, is simply not true.

Former Vice President Al Gore is back on the scene and is not pleased that the “truth” is under attack. In a new video promoting his event called “24 Hours of Reality,” Gore claims that “big oil and big coal are spending big money to spread doubt about climate change” and basically that now is the time to fight back.

Known as an iconoclastic Congressman and serial presidential candidate, Rep. Ron Paul also has a lesser-known career as a prolific author. To understand more about the candidate, the Daily Beast‘s David Graham went through the 2012 hopeful’s latest tome, Liberty Defined, and came away concluding, perhaps unfairly, that Rep. Paul is not a “disciplined candidate” and, given his affinity for conspiracy, is a long way from the nomination.

Could this be the official end of the honeymoon period New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was enjoying with conservatives? Or as Glenn Beck describes it, Christie’s recent statements on climate change should serve as a “cold shower for Chris Christie lovers” everywhere.

For a candidate already having trouble rallying the Republican base, Mitt Romney seems to have no fear of being labeled a RINO. Speaking at a town hall in New Hampshire, the 2012 candidate came clean with the fact that he believes in man-made global warming, and that he believes “it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants.” Between this and “Romneycare,” these are shaping out to be some rather rough primaries for the former Massachusetts governor.

You can set your watch by it ever year. Whenever there’s snow on the ground, as sure there are children hoping for a snow day, there’s someone out there smugly shaking their head and saying, “Guess Al Gore was wrong about that whole Global Warming thing, huh?” This year that person was Bill O’Reilly and, this year, he actually got a response from none other than Gore himself.

Countdown guest host Sam Seder tonight tackled global warming, an issue that predictably popped back up into the national consciousness in the wake of this weekend’s blizzard in the Northeast U.S. Seder, also predictably, viewed attacks on global warming science as faulty, and brought on conservation biologist Reese Halter to make this point – but not before providing a…unique explanation himself.

A passionate environmentalist went head-to-head with Tucker Carlson and conservative author Chris Horner on Hannity tonight and, given the copious cult and spaceship references, Betsy Rosenberg handled the debate with relative aplomb, considering she was treated not unlike what one would imagine a creationist would be treated like on an all-liberal panel.

British meteorologist Piers Corbyn appeared on Fox and Friends to not only celebrate his accurate prediction of a bone-chillingly cold winter, but to also share his disgust with the “failed science” known as global warming. Despite it often being mentioned that the scientific community agrees about global warming, Corbyn is proud to go against the grain and advocate for his hypothesis of the coming global cooling.

Bill Maher has in one phrase probably done more damage to the global warming movement than climate change skeptics could have ever imagined to themselves. Trying to argue that believing in global warming was elementary for any educated person, he quoted Osama bin Laden saying in one of his underground (literally) videos that “the phenomenon is an actual fact.”

Former Vice President Al Gore was in Tampa, Florida this weekend, campaigning with Democratic Senate candidate Kendrick Meek, when he came upon some skeptics of Gore’s global warming theory. Chant’s of “You’re a fraud!” and shout’s calling global warming a “hoax,” lead by a group that calls themselves “We Are Change,” a grassroots group whose mission is to “reveal the truth behind the events of September 11th, as well as the lies of the government and corporate elite who remain suspect in this crime.”

The new ad for Nissan’s electric car, the LEAF, has hit the internet, and you’d be forgiven if you confuse it with a Charmin commercial. Salon is calling it a shameless ember thrown into the fires of the culture wars that will “will send you into a Tea-Party paroxysm of rage.” It’s more of a cuddly furball thrown into the political cage match of the global warming debate that will send you into an apolitical paroxysm of cute.

The news of Al and Tipper Gore‘s separation, for most in the media, came as a sudden minor tragedy, and not exactly something to be made light of. In the talk radio world, Rush Limbaugh saw it as a chance for a good laugh at the expense of Gore’s career as an environmental activist yesterday, finding an old report that suggested a high divorce rate in a country could contribute to global warming.

Just as Wolf Blitzer reached his 20th anniversary with CNN recently, he conducted a lengthy chat with the guy who started the network 30 years ago: Ted Turner.

The wide-ranging interview touched on some of Turner’s favorite topics – energy, the environment, his success at CNN – and some topics that very clearly were those Blitzer’s former CNN boss didn’t want to discuss.

It sounds like the title of an obscure Huffington Post column, but it’s today’s top story on CNN.com: “Is the Earth Striking Back?” Author Alan Weisman warns that the side effects of democracy in America are causing the earth to “strike back” at humanity with earthquakes and volcanos. Suddenly, global warming is the least of our problems.

In the debate on global climate change, Global Warming proponents may have just gotten their favorite closing argument back. The Associated Press is reporting that a British panel, made up of the House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee, has completed an investigation today that clears the Climategate scientists of nearly all wrongdoing and validated their initial findings.