“This is a crisis we can’t afford to ignore,” warned Henry Paulson. The former treasury secretary’s op-ed was published Sunday in The New York Times. Days earlier, four former EPA administrators –  William Ruckelshaus, Lee Thomas, William Reilly and Christine Todd Whitman – testified at a Senate hearing on climate change.  What’s remarkable about that roster is that everyone on it – Paulson, Ruckelshaus, Thomas , Reilly and Whitman – are all Republicans. They served four different presidents – Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush –  all Republicans. 

“After years of denying the reality of global warming, more and more leading Republicans are now acknowledging what virtually the entire scientific community has told us is happening to our planet. Climate change is real. It is significantly caused by human activities. It already is causing devastating problems and those problems will get worse if we do not cut greenhouse gas emissions and transform our energy system,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday.

Even 63 percent of rank-and-file Republicans in a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll said the federal government should limit the release of greenhouse gases from existing power plants in an effort to reduce global warming.

There still is one place where Republicans think global warming is a “hoax” that was dreamed up by Al Gore, Hollywood elites and the United Nations. That place is the United States Congress.

“The enormously important question now is will the Republicans in Congress listen to some of the leading thinkers in their party who have studied this issue. If so, this could be a major breakthrough,” Sanders said.