Inglis is a maverick among Republican leaders, who often laugh off global warming or say that climate regulations “imperil the companies in our country,” as presidential candidate Donald Trump put it recently.

Former six-term U.S. Republican South Carolina Congressman Bob Inglis is a deeply conservative, free-market evangelical who believes a British Columbia-style carbon tax is a climate solution America’s political right can support.

Republican Senator Jim Inhofe’s tossing of a snow ball on the Senate floor this year to “show” climate change is a hoax— against decades of scientific evidence to the contrary— is another, if slightly more bizarre, example of conservative attitudes on the issue.

It’s no wonder, writes Inglis, that the political left has “successfully painted [U.S.] conservatives as troglodyte” cavemen.

The self-described "100 per cent Christian" South Carolina conservative says he saw the light about global warming after years of denying it. And rather than wage reactionary attacks, he preaches that Republicans should become "climate realists" and offer up even better free-market approaches to solving the problem than the Democrats.

“The lie is that we can’t do it, [that] we can't innovate, we've got to keep relying on petroleum, coal, we've got to have just those things. Why? To be in this situation, where those fossil fuels are imperiling our future, and future generations, and we're not accountable for that? That really becomes a moral problem,” he said.

Inglis leads a “RepublicEN.org” campaign, asking on social media #AreyouEN? —as in, 'Are you right with clean energy?' His efforts have earned him a JFK Profile in Courage award, and a "Climate 25" nod by the Weather Channel.

The National Observer caught up with him this week, while Inglis was on a cross-country crusade to remove the political stigma of acting on climate change for America's right.

Inglis's gospel is a revenue-neutral carbon tax: government charges for the CO2 that "imperils" us, then gives the money back in tax cuts.

"That second step of cutting taxes elsewhere is something that requires trust. Of course, as Ronald Reagan used to say, 'Trust, but verify,'" he said Tuesday.

New economic analysis says such a carbon tax could trigger a $1.3 trillion dollar clean energy boom in the U.S. over 20 years.

'Rock-solid conservative thought'

Inglis says that with a price on carbon, government can get out out of the way and end its subsidies of oil and gas.

"The only way freedom works in a free enterprise system is if all actors in the free enterprise system are fully accountable. If you let some fuels or actors who are burning those fuels... not be accountable for the climate costs they are creating, then you get a market distortion."

"That is rock-solid conservative— libertarian even—thought," he said.

Inglis [right] doing a selfie with students at Tar Heel Boys State in North Carolina. Inglis photo.

To many young U.S. conservatives, Inglis's words are a breath of fresh air. He's a “leading voice in breaking America's political impasse on climate,” said Tyler Higgins, a Furman College student executive with College Republicans.

The South Carolina campus group hosted Inglis Wednesday for a screening of the documentary “Merchants of Doubt” in which the politician is featured.

Inglis is thrilled young people get it.

"It's an exciting thing to work [with], especially among young conservatives, because they want conservatism to provide an answer to this crucial question that we face about how to solve climate change,” said Inglis.

"[They] want to believe that a free enterprise party can solve this."