Senator Tillis meets with Maj. Gen. David Conboy at Fort Bragg in North Carolina

In an August 7 interview with Tim Boyum of Spectrum News in Charlotte, North Carolina, Republican Senator Thom Tillis made his concerns about climate change clear, suggesting that actions need to be taken to both address the human causes of climate change, and adapt to its locked-in effects. From the start of the interview (at 0:08):

Well, I think we have to come up with several strategies to recognize reality. That climate changes. Sometimes it changes just because it has over millennia, and other times it changes because of human factors. And if you don’t have a strategy, 1) to try and reduce the impact that human factors have on it, and 2) to adapt when the reality is that we’re gonna have to adapt in some cases, then…it has an impact on business. It creates another element of uncertainty that…business hates uncertainty. So there’s a lot of reasons to do it, for the obvious stewardship of the environment, but for also stewardship of business.

Further, when asked about his evolving position on the issue over the years (at 0:44), Senator Tillis referenced the U.S. military’s increasing concerns about the issue as an important factor in that evolution. From (1:06):

I think that the more progress we make. The more you talk with the military, and they view climate change as having some factors in different parts of the world. The more the science evolves…

Senator Tillis then went on to suggest (at 2:42) that he, and like-minded policymakers in Congress, are trying to “build a coalition of people in the middle that actually want to solve the problem, and not necessarily advance a political agenda exclusively.” He also called for U.S. leadership on climate change internationally, stating (at 3:27): “Look, if the U.S. wasn’t in the discussion about tackling climate change, we’d be a very different world and there’d be a lot greater danger. So we need to make sure that we keep the United States on the forefront of trying to come up with a solution. But it has to be a solution that the global players play a part in…we need to start thinking about more multi-dimensional approaches to the solution.”

There’s a lot more. To watch the full interview, click here.