Again, religious fanatic, creationist, and climate change denier Rick Santorum provides the best measure of the dangerously irresponsible disconnect between the American right wing and reality.

“The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is,” said Rick Santorum.

Santorum is sneering at a physical phenomenon that has been uncontroversial, established science for more than 100 years: that CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere acts as a heat trap, preventing the Sun’s heat from being radiated back out into space. This isn’t rocket surgery, it’s the simplest kind of physics.

And Rick Santorum is far from the only Republican spouting this kind of determined ignorance; the GOP has become the anti-factual party, existing in a weird echo chamber environment in which falsehoods are never abandoned, ridiculous conspiracy theories are universally believed, reality is not allowed to impinge, and being anti-scientific is considered a noble quality, to be applauded and cheered.