The events of the past two weeks are not lost on the Pope. Hurricane after record hurricane has battered the Caribbean and the southern United States. Images of cities under water have flooded our TV screens. And yet, despite the increasing frequency and severity of these storms, which are amped up by the warmer than usual water in the ocean, there are still some who refuse to believe that climate change might be a problem. You know who believes in climate change? Pope Francis. This weekend, he had some choice words for climate deniers from his plane, according to the Associated Press.

“Those who deny this must go to the scientists and ask them. They speak very clearly,” he said, referring to experts who blame global warming on man-made activities. Francis said scientists have also clearly charted what needed to be done to reverse course on global warming and said individuals and politicians had a “moral responsibility” to do their part. “These aren’t opinions pulled out of thin air. They are very clear,” he said. “Then they (leaders) decide and history will judge those decisions.”

Believing that climate change is man-made is now so uncontroversial that even the head of a major religion — a religion with a history of denying science things — is like, "Dudes. Why wouldn't you listen to scientists?" And yet, in the United States there's one political party that continues to choose not to believe in science. Why? The easy answer could be money, but that's not entirely true. There's a lot of money in combating climate change. Entire new industries are growing out of the fight! China is investing heavily in it. But Republicans aren't interested in just making more money, they're interested in who controlling who gets that money. And their donors are giants in industries that would lose money if the nation were to say, move away from oil. And so they willfully choose to turn science into a partisan political issue. The Pope, who also believes in the Big Bang and evolution, had a theory as to why they've made this choice:

For those who have denied climate change, or delayed actions to counter it, he responded with an Old Testament saying: “Man is stupid.”

Amen, Padre. Amen.