CORRECTION: This post fixes an incorrect depiction of Theodore Roosevelt's contribution to American environmentalism.

It is easy to forget that Republicans were central to the creation of the modern environmental movement in the United States.

Two Republicans, Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, are pillars of American environmentalism.

Roosevelt alone is responsible for protecting 230 million acres of American land that included the creation of five national parks, 55 national game and bird reserves, 18 national monuments, and 150 National Forests.

A generation later, Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency to curb air and water pollution.

GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich pauses during his speech at the 2012 Pennsylvania Leadership Conference at the Radisson Hotel Harrisburg in Camp Hill. JOE HERMITT, The Patriot-News

In a 2008 ad for former Democratic Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, Gingrich sat next to then-Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and called for the nation to “take action to address climate change.”

But two years later, as he was ramping up his own bid for the presidency, he told an online environmental news group that, “It’s an act of egotism for humans to think we’re a primary source of climate change.”

Evolution of a doubting culture

Academics on the left say the vehement disregard of the most prestigious scientific bodies in the world is rooted in a visceral reaction among conservatives to anything embraced by liberals. That disbelief, they argue, is the result of a heavily-orchestrated misinformation campaign to sew the seeds of doubt.

Much of that doubting culture, experts say, came out of the tobacco industry's effort to refute scientific claims that smoking was dangerous.

Highly respected scholar Frederick Seitz had been one of the few scientists who stood up for big tobacco. Later, Seitz helped form a conservative think tank called the George C. Marshall Institute, accepted funding from the fossil fuel industry, hired PR firms that had marketed smoking, and turned his attention to debunking the global warming argument.

“The conservative antipathy towards environmentalism goes back decades,” said Judith Layzer, an expert on environmental policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“Smoking and cancer was one area where this particular tactic of questioning science was used,” Layzer said. “So the tactic was refined by the time climate change came along."

Now, many scientists argue, scores of conservative think tanks generate articles and books outside of established scholarly reviews that doubt the veracity of climate change. Many in the mainstream scientific community say this anti-environmental effort has spawned a deep-seeded culture of distrust in science of any kind.

“This denial has been so firmly planted in the conservative movement, it's become part of their core identity,” said Oklahoma State University professor Riley Dunlap. “And it's almost wholly concentrated among conservatives and Republicans.”

Most conservatives acknowledge the improvements made on environmental issues in recent generations, but argue that liberals have created a false scare to funnel public dollars into left-supporting interests.

“It's just amazing how much progress has been made and yet you have a whole collection of mostly Washington-based groups that make their living scaring old ladies,” said James Seif, a former DEP secretary under Republican Gov. Tom Ridge.

Democratic missteps

Though widely supportive of the climate change argument, Democrats have not always covered themselves in environmentalism glory.

President Barack Obama's aggressive support of the renewable energy industry resulted in a high profile embarrassment when one hand-picked solar panel company called Solyndra went belly up after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees. As a result, taxpayers are stuck with a $385 million bill for a failed, government-backed, green energy venture.

President Barack Obama examines a solar panel with Solyndra Chief Executive Officer Chris Gronet, right, and Executive Vice President Ben Bierman, during a tour of Solyndra, Inc., a solar panel manufacturing facility, in Fremont, Calif., May 26, 2010.

And though the Keystone Pipeline, Marcellus Shale and other recently discovered fossil fuel reserve projects have broad national and statewide support, Obama and other Democrats have resisted embracing them.

Seif noted that renewable energy endeavors like Solyndra shouldn't be promoted to the detriment of traditional energy sources.

“I have more faith than many in renewables, but I don't think the economy should be distorted because of it,” he said. “The disagreement has to do with remedies, spending money, and the regulation of carbon fuels.”

Most academics acknowledge that they are politically left of center. But they also flatly reject the notion that their politics fuels their science.

“That's so preposterous,” said Donald Brown, Widener University law professor and former director of the state departments of Environmental Protection and Conservation and Natural Resources. “It's no hoax. A lot of the scientists I work with on this are Republicans and they're shouting.”

One of them, leading Penn State geoscientist Richard Alley gave a lecture earlier this month titled, "Rising Seas, Warming Planet: Lessons from Antarctica."

But efforts by even prominent GOP scientists have been poorly received in doubting conservative circles.

In January, a “frenzy of hate” was directed at prominent MIT atmospheric scientist and registered Republican Kerry Emanuel and his wife after he participated in a documentary produced by a GOP group arguing the veracity of climate change.

“They were vile, these emails,” Emanuel told the online news service Mother Jones.

Republicans acknowledging climate change

Though few elected Republicans stand by the climate change argument, there are those out of the political arena that continue to make the case.

In February, Ridge stood with a bipartisan assortment of prominent retired national security figures to single out climate change as a leading threat.

“They're not talking about whether or not it is occurring – it is,” Ridge, a former Homeland Security secretary, said in February. “They're talking about addressing the problem and protecting the American people. It's time Washington does the same.”

David Hess, a former GOP state environmental protection secretary under Ridge, takes a similar – if slightly more conservative – position.

“Of course Earth's climate is changing,” Hess said before offering some doubt about the role humans are playing. “It's a natural system and all natural systems change over time.”

Hess points to an extensive history of Republican-led environmental reforms in the commonwealth that predated the formation of the EPA or the creation of Earth Day, such as bond issues to clean up abandon mines and finance recreation projects.

Criticism of Corbett

That tradition seems to conflict with Pennsylvania's current GOP Gov. Tom Corbett.

Environmental activists claim that Corbett has allowed the fracking industry to pillage the state without putting in place appropriate environmental safeguards and needed land use taxes. Corbett has defended his administration's efforts to tap natural gas safely.

But around the same time Ridge was calling attention to the threat of climate change, Corbett's DEP Secretary Michael Krancer was embroiled in his own climate change controversy.

Former DEP Secretary Michael Krancer

Two Democratic state lawmakers claimed Krancer "refused to acknowledge the reality of climate change" during House testimony. Krancer later told reporters that he agrees with the science behind climate change, and that addressing it is important before stepping down from his post earlier this year.

Layzer said it's evidence of how conservatives have made climate change a third rail issue for GOP candidates.

“I'm sure there are a handful of Republicans in office that know perfectly well that this is a real issue," Layzer said. "But they're not going to say it.”

Hanger, the former DEP secretary, said many conservatives still maintain that environmentalism conflicts with free enterprise. And that posture will cause their party to further lose the emerging emerging bloc of young voters.

“An overwhelming majority of people below 30 believe that being good stewards of the environment is part of their moral responsibility,” he said.

Kathleen McGinty, another former DEP secretary and Democrat running for governor in 2014, maintains that environmental issues need not be partisan.

“Early in my career I saw [conservative] British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher take a lead on the ozone depletion issue,” said McGinty, who like Thatcher studied chemistry in college. “As a chemist, she got the science and was motivated to act.”

But Seif doubted that the politics of climate change will improve in the near future.

“The place the environment used to hold in the public debate has been plowed under by opportunists and loudmouths,” he said. “It'll continue to be politicized [and] future progress will be slower to get to.”

Meanwhile, those in the mainstream scientific community hope that conservatives can look past the partisan rhetoric and embrace a more “healthy criticism” of climate change.

“Skepticism is a good thing. We want to encourage it,” said Brown, the Widener professor who presented a report on why Pennsylvania needs to take steps to reduce the threat of climate change Wednesday in the Capitol. “But the push back is not responsible skepticism. It's not peer-reviewed journals.”

The climate issue, he argues, is far too critical to allow it to descend into petty partisanship.

“How you prevent some people with a vested interest from disrupting an issue is a huge democracy problem,” Brown added. “It's an example of how people with a lot of money can manipulate a democracy.”