Polar Explorer Who Worked With Pawlenty ‘Baffled’ By His ‘Reckless’ Flip-Flop On Climate Threat

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) was once a champion of policies like cap-and-trade to combat global warming pollution, but he now calls his past climate leadership “stupid” and a “disaster.”

The polar explorer who worked with Pawlenty to “convince the skeptics” and find solutions to greenhouse pollution from oil and coal, Will Steger, is now “baffled” by Pawlenty’s reversal. In an interview with Mother Jones, Steger says that he believed “morally we were on the same level” when they met in 2006, and praised the governor’s acts of leadership in 2007 to build “unity in this community” around a clean energy economy. Now, however, Steger — who has conquered both the North Pole and Antarctica — feels defeated by Pawlenty’s “reckless” abandonment of our children’s future:

“I’m baffled by that—did he actually say that?” says Steger, when asked about Pawlenty’s recent statements. “I’m baffled by that. But I think he’s getting information from the wrong source and it’s really too bad for our children. It’s reckless.”

“A lot of environmentalists think I want to dump on the governor because he changed around,” Steger told Mother Jones. “No, I respect the governor and I’m thankful that he did what he did do. It’s too bad that he couldn’t carry the flag, but in that party, you don’t carry that flag.”