MAP: Where Climate Change Denialists Govern In United States

Taegan Goddard's Wonk Wire notes this curious fact: "Half of all Republican governors are climate [change] deniers."

Think Progress does an excellent job of analysing this phenomenon of denying scientific fact and linking it with partisan identification (Republican party identification):

The United States has already faced many severe climate-related weather events over the past few years. The president has declared 430 climate-related disasters from 2011 to March of 2014. There were a 25 extreme weather events that each caused at least $1 billion in damage, including Superstorm Sandy and overwhelming drought that has covered almost the entire western half of the United States. Combined, these extreme weather events were responsible for 1,107 fatalities and up to $188 billion in economic damages. 

Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus and high costs to taxpayers, there are still elected officials in Congress who refuse to accept that climate change is happening.
Over 56 percent — 133 members — of the current Republican caucus in the House of Representatives deny the basic tenets of climate science. 65 percent (30 members) of the Senate Republican caucus also deny climate change. What this means is that they have made public statements indicating that they question or reject that climate change is real, is happening, and is caused by human consumption of fossil fuels.

This is one reason why politics is so important. There are significant public policy differences between the parties. One of the parties believes in reality and I have no idea what Republicans believe in.