http://www.motherjones.com/...
As speaker of the Florida Legislature, Rubio shepherded a landmark bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions, voiced caution about drilling off the Sunshine State's coast, and argued that climate change was real. "Global warming, dependence on foreign sources of fuel, and capitalism have come together to create opportunities for us that were unimaginable just a few short years ago," he told his House colleagues in 2007. Of drilling, he said it should only be done if it could be proven environmentally safe, and it wasn't a silver bullet: "Even if we started drilling tomorrow morning, it could take close to 10 years before we start seeing the benefits."
But as soon as he jumped into the US Senate race, his love for Mother Earth faded. He stumped for a Palinesque pro-oil campaign called "Drill Here, Drill Now." He ridiculed cap-and-trade emissions plans as "European-style" or "California-style" social engineering. And he attacked his Senate opponent, the moderate Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist, as "a believer in man-made global warming." "I don't think there's the scientific evidence to justify it," he told the Tampa Tribune.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/...
Human activity has been increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (mostly carbon dioxide from combustion of coal, oil, and gas; plus a few other trace gases). There is no scientific debate on this point. Pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide (prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution) were about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv), and current levels are greater than 380 ppmv and increasing at a rate of 1.9 ppm yr-1 since 2000. The global concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere today far exceeds the natural range over the last 650,000 years of 180 to 300 ppmv. According to the IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES), by the end of the 21st century, we could expect to see carbon dioxide concentrations of anywhere from 490 to 1260 ppm (75-350% above the pre-industrial concentration).