In an interview with Texas Tribune political reporter Jay Root on Tuesday, Senator Ted Cruz explained why he didn’t believe in climate change and opposed environmental regulations to lessen its impact.

“I’m a big believer that we should follow the science and follow the evidence,” the Texas Republican, who announced his bid for the White House on Monday, said. “If you look at global warming alarmists, they don’t like to look at the actual facts and the data.”

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Cruz claimed satellite data contradicted scientists’ climate models, which was a “real problem for the global warming alarmists.”

He said that scientists once believed in “global cooling,” and advocated government regulations to fight the climate phenomenon. But the data didn’t back up the theory, according to Cruz, so those scientists began talking about “global warming.”

“The term has shifted,” Cruz said, “and now suddenly it’s climate change. And again, the solution is government control of the energy sector, and every aspect of our lives. And when someone keeps proposing the same solution regardless of the problem, you start to think maybe they just like government control of the energy sector and every aspect of our lives.”

Cruz said people who believed in climate change “screamed” at people who doubted the evidence and branded them heretics.

“Today, global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat Earthers,” he remarked. “It used to be accepted scientific wisdom: the Earth is flat.”

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Cruz claimed Al Gore and climate scientists were merely using the issue to enrich themselves financially, while the solutions they proposed would hurt “millions of hardworking men and women.”

“It causes real suffering when hardworking single moms who are trying to feed their kids see their energy bill skyrocket because politicians are imposing massive costs,” he said.

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