The American Spectator

home
ADVERTISEMENT
Print Email
Text Size

The Spectacle Blog

Mitt Romney Clarifies Climate Change Stance

By on 8.25.11 @ 11:22AM

Yesterday Mitt Romney clarified that, although he does believe that human activity is contributing to rising global temperatures, he does not support cap and trade or a carbon tax. 

“Do I think the world’s getting hotter? Yeah, I don’t know that but I think that it is,” [Romney] said. “I don’t know if it’s mostly caused by humans.”

“What I’m not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don’t know the answer to.”

Previously, Romney had asserted that man-made global warming is real and expressed support for emissions reductions. Those remarks left Romney’s stance on measures such as cap and trade a little unclear, until now. 

A majority of Republicans don’t believe that global warming is caused by humans and, accordingly, oppose schemes like cap and trade. Expressing skepticism of the science behind climate change, as for instance Gov. Rick Perry has, allows candidates to assure voters that they won’t support cap and trade or carbon taxes once they’re in office. This assurance is necessary because often Republicans who do believe in global warming end up working with Democrats on climate change bills — John McCain is a good example. 

Romney’s statements, though, bring him into line with fellow Republican candidate Jon Huntsman and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, among others, in opposing major emissions-reductions plans on economic grounds, while not criticizing climate scientists. 

This is a hard stance to explain, which is, in part, why most Republicans avoid it. But it’s not at all inconsistent: all of the major cap and trade or carbon tax proposals that have been introduced in Congress would cost far more than they would be worth in terms of greenhouse gas emissions reductions. There’s no reason a presidential candidate shouldn’t point that out. 

View all comments (32) |

Wayne | 8.25.11 @ 11:32AM

Problem is that he is insisting that temperatures are rising. Even NASA has said that the temperatures have not risen since 1998. He is behind the curve and leaves himself open to reversing course once elected.

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.25.11 @ 11:52AM

Let's face it folks. Mitt is a flounder. Flop flop flop....."please let me be president. I have been flopping toward it for sooooo long."

Clint| 8.25.11 @ 12:28PM

Start now to stop The GOP Ruling Elites' " Anointed One " Mittens Romney.

We are being set up for their boy.

Clint| 8.25.11 @ 7:47PM

"Rasmussen Has Ron Paul Running Closest With Obama
Erik Hayden Aug 24, 2011 1:

Who does the president fare worst against in a head-to-head matchup? On Wednesday, Rasmussen released its latest nationwide early campaign survey. And right now, Barack Obama does well against Mitt Romney (46 to 38 percent) and narrowly leads Perry (43 to 40 percent) and Michele Bachmann (43 to 39 percent).

Which means, if you combine these results with the Rasmussen poll released Tuesday, the GOP candidate doing the best against the president is....Ron Paul? Yesterday's head-to-head poll showed the libertarian trailing the president 39 to 38 percent, by presumably the same methodology."

Al Adab| 8.25.11 @ 12:29PM

The problem that Mr. Romney has with current issues stems from his establishmentarian, accomodationist Republicanism. Whar we seek is someone who does not follow the trends and fashions of the political winds, but rather one who understands the foundations of this nations system of government and the philosophy which underlies it. Gov. Romney, as his father before him, has neither the vision nor the willpower the times demand.

elliesue| 8.25.11 @ 12:29PM

Romney has been absolutely consistent. Read his book - No Apology - page 227.

Buffalo| 8.25.11 @ 12:29PM

Mitt is a politician through and through. He has no solid positions, only whatever he and his team feel will get him elected and re-elected. Romney care - he says good for Mass (proven WRONG) but maybe bad for the other 49 which is a waffle waiting to flip.

Bo| 8.25.11 @ 12:30PM

Like it or not, most Americans probably have been hectored (aka "educated") into thinking there's some sort of global warming going on. Everybody under 40 has been Earth Day-ed into submission on this topic. However, I bet most folks think that the Dems are going way too far with this cap and trade stuff. So, I think Romney's position would actually appeal to a lot of folks.

fred grant| 8.25.11 @ 12:57PM

mitt romney is the product of morman inbreeding for a hundred years of polygamy.fathers breeding daugthers.sisters cousins thats why mormans of long standing are so screwed up in the head

smokedaddy| 8.25.11 @ 2:56PM

As a descendent of a fine family of Idaho Mormon Polygamists from 3 generations back, I'll grant you partial credit. But a hundred years? Try 50 or so. The practice started with Joseph Smith in the 1830's, was very limited until the migration to Utah c 1850, and was then disavowed and mostly discontinued when Utah became a state around 1895. Don't know if Romney's family was inbred or not though.

Al Adab| 8.25.11 @ 5:00PM

Mitt's father George was actually born in Mexico of American parents who settled there by way of avoiding the Utah statehood requirements. The Church was obligated to give up the practice in exchange for statehood.

miken| 8.25.11 @ 2:32PM

There's a much easier out. None of the proposals put before Congress or even suggested will stop global warming or reduce it in any substantial way.
Scientists call for an 80% cut in emissions, and China is about 25% of worldwide emissions. You can throw in Europe, Russia, Japan, Australia, Canada, and South Korea, and you are still only covering 45% of emissions. Even a 45% cut in emissions, which you get if US and other countries cut all emissions, still doesnt drop temperatures very much. Instead of gaining 4.5C you would gain 4C.

Rich Matarese | 8.25.11 @ 2:45PM

Whether the climate is going to change - warmer possibly, colder more likely - isn't the issue. It's whether or not anthropogenic (man-made) carbon dioxide emissions provide a significant causative factor, and of that - after more than thirty years of quasiscientific investigation and more than EIGHTY BILLION DOLLARS in federal spending on this garbage, there is simply NO empirical evidence that this is the case.

Now, if Romney the RINO can't get his head unwedged about that fact by now, to hell with him.

The only guy in the Republican race with any scientific training at all - and decades of experience in a profession where scientific literacy is the key to performance - is Ron Paul, and he's called the great "man-made global climate change" bogosity a hoax for years.

Ron Paul in 2012.

stevor| 8.25.11 @ 5:39PM

The reason that CO2 is higher with hotter weather is because the hotter weather increases the CO2 and hot the reverse, as the Climate Change FRAUDS assert:
http://www.weatheraction.com/p.....10&fsize=0

But most people are brainwashed. But if we spread this around, TRULY educating people about it, that can CHANGE!

Occam's Tool| 8.25.11 @ 9:45PM

Yes, it is a hoax, most likely---the data is forged and the scientists are dishonest in many ways. I always have concerns about lawyers saying "the science is settled."

My scientific background is as thorough as Paul's and more recent. (UTMB MD 1988, UCLA residency in Psych Board Certified 1995, re-certified 2005, ABPN)

But Ron Paul =Dennis Kucinich on foreign policy.
Bachmann also thinks AGW is crap. She's my choice.

Clint| 8.26.11 @ 7:24AM

Gee Tool Job,
"Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country."
-Ronald Reagan

Intelligent Design| 8.25.11 @ 2:46PM

The weathermen don't know where Irene is going in the next couple of days ... give or take 200 miles, but the climatologists tell us the sea level in NYC will be 12.375 inches higher in the year 2075. Wow man, I guess climatologists should be consulted about the exact path of hurricanes.

Romney can't be trusted on this global warming or "climate change" issue anymore than he can be trusted on Romney-ObamaCare.

smokedaddy| 8.25.11 @ 2:47PM

OK, Romney says he'll grant blanket waivers to Obamacare and now says he will not support trillions of $ for reduing carbon. But with Romney & other RINOS you need to listen carefully. This does not mean that he supports repeal of the Afordable Care Act or that he'd be adverse to spending, say, hundreds of billions on this snipe hunt. He's fundamentally a technocrat at heart, irristably attracted to ordering people what to do. I supported him 4 years ago, but wish hadn't, and in any case, events are in the process of passing him by.

JP| 8.25.11 @ 3:16PM

Mitt is a true believer. He follows whatever the bien pensants say. His problem is that he positioned himself far to the Left in what is a more conservative GOP than in 2008. And while he commands huge leads in name recognition and money (as well as Establishment support), the entrance of Perry so early has him a bit worried. Hence, this "adjustment" vis-a-vis Global Warming.

Mitt represents a decaying wing of the GOP (Progressive Lite). Progressive Lite has no problem with the Obama Agenda save the quickness that it is implemented. Mitt's goals are nearly identical with Obama's once you remove the spin. Both are Statists; both desire a large, well funded, and powerful bureaucracy that manages every facet of a person's life from birth until death. It is really that simple.

Bellicose Bob| 8.25.11 @ 4:13PM

JP, I think you nailed it down.
Romney is a statist for sure. He is proud of RomneyCare. He is only back-tracking on man-made global warming because he senses it is the politically expedient thing to do.

martin j smith| 8.25.11 @ 4:28PM

I am using this article to bring to to the attention of others two issues: THE Phoneyness of moderate Republicans of which Romeny is an example combined with the attempt by none other than FOX NEWS to push RINOS. I have seen Romney,Rove,Jeb Bush and I gather very soon Huntsman will be on today. While do not begrudge Fox from interviewing these individuals
I do also have a sense that FOX is pushing a moderate line. I am waiting to see if there will be more interviews with say: Bachman,Perry and what about Palin say ? The issue of man made global warming which I believe is a hoax has not always been seen that way by moderates,such as Romney. Fox News and FBN as in the case of the WSJ and I believe Wall Street overall are NOT REALLY CONSERVATIVES except for this: Obama has them black mailed in my view an they are running scared. Romney and other moderates I think are afraid of the Socialists--yes afraid of violence. And so i suspect they are willing to go along to get along. But I believe in the end these RINOS or moderates will find that making stupid compromises or hemming and hawing about issues such as global warming, illegal immigration and others will in the ned not save them from the Socialists who want everything destroyed so that we can be one happy Socialist Republic.

Joey| 8.25.11 @ 4:49PM

"Romney's statements, though, bring him into line with fellow Republican candidate Jon Huntsman and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, among others, in opposing major emissions-reductions plans on economic grounds, while not criticizing climate scientists.

This is a hard stance to explain, which is, in part, why most Republicans avoid it."

Hard to explain, yes, for those who want to sit on both sides of the fence. How does one criticize cap and trade without recognizing the fecklessness of the so-called climate "scientists"?

Want to have something easy to explain? Then just say "I do not believe in cap and trade because the science on which it is premised is fraudulent mostly, and bad science always." Go ahead, just say it. You'll feel better afterward.

Anyone who has followed the AGW news with any kind of consistency knows this to be a true statement.

stevor| 8.25.11 @ 5:37PM

It's too bad that these candidates are so IGNORANT:
Here's three important things (articles/videos) about the falacy of CO2 causing climate change:

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.c.....ays-35691/
Scientists Gagged From Interpreting Study That Links Climate Change To Cosmic Rays

Cosmic rays are influence by the sun and the galayy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKoUwttE0BA

But most people are brainwashed. But if we spread this around, TRULY educating people about it, that can CHANGE!

cats1cowboy| 8.25.11 @ 7:16PM

The "consensus" at one time was that it would never rain. Only eight people prepared for the flood. How'd that consensus work out?

TruthSpeaker| 8.25.11 @ 10:14PM

Folks, it is getting hotter because we are going toward hell at breakneck speed. After all, Satan does rule earth. It is up to us to beat him back.

Dacron Mather| 8.26.11 @ 12:26AM

What a bunch of maroons.

Marc Jeric| 8.26.11 @ 12:33AM

This global warming conspiracy needs to be put in perspective to be properly understood. This far-left attack by government-paid drones started in the 1970′s with the global cooling scam: we should disarm our nuclear bombers and fill them with soot to be spread over the poles and so prevent those new glaciers from descending south and crushing the New York skyscrapers to dust. When that did not work the same fakers invented the global warming hoax in the 1990′s; we should nationalize all industries and organize a UN-sponsored world socialist government based on “social justice” with the fakers in charge. What with 12 years of substantial cooling the fakers switched to the climate change flimflam in the 2000′s; so whatever happens we should…see above under the global warming hoax. And now we are faced with the cap & trade power grab – but the aim is the same as above. Our socialists, marxists, communists, Hollywood stars, university professors in social and political “sciences”, and environmentalists are all clamoring for action while spurring President Obama ("Tomorrow the oceans will stop rising and the planet will start healing") and his 35 czars/komissars to undertake immediate measures to save the planet – with the same aims as described above.
In the meantime our Mian Stream Media are unanimous in spreading this criminal propaganda daily; the ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, the NY Times, the Washington Post, etc. drive this propaganda daily. What is totally ignored are the detailed descriptions of faked data, skewed computer programs, politically revised conclusions by the UN-sponsored far-left clique of biased scientists – all government-paid drones that no private enterprise would hire. Another thing ignored is the “Global Warming Petition” (see Internet) where 31,487 independent US scientists (including 9,029 of them with PhD degrees) dispute decisively the findings of the UN-sponsored panel; also ignored is the “Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change” (see also Internet) where a smaller number of competent world scientists, about 712, including 142 pure climatologists, state the same – i.e., that the man-caused catastrophic global warming is a farce. The books by Christopher Horner, Robert Carter, and AW Montford describing the lies, fakes, phony data, opposite conclusions, redacting by UN political hacks, reverse graphs, etc., have exposed this far-left propaganda in painful detail.
In the case of the above mentioned Petition, several "environmentalists" had submitted phony names with phony credentials in order to sabotage that effort. It took several years of painstaking and expensive effort (we contributed a lot of private money for that) to clean up the list from those saboteurs and verify all academic and professional data of the signatories.
To put this whole conspiracy in terms of numbers, let me say that the projected world-threatening increase of carbon dioxide of 100 ppm (parts per million) by the end of this century would increase the termal absorptivity of the atmosphere by one-eighth of one percent; that is the definition of something totally negligible. On the other hand the sun cycles of cooling and heating are thousands of times more powerful with regard to the carbon dioxide in the air; when the sun is cold the oceans absorb many millions of tons of it; and when the sun heats up the oceans release the carbon dioxide in quantities thousands of times bigger than anything the mankind could produce. To illustrate this point in more accessible terms to somebody who who is not a climatologist or a scientist or an engineer; the argument of catastrophic anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming issued by our panic driven socialist/marxist government-paid hacks is like saying that a burp of a lonely wolf in Alaska will transform Florida into a Sahara-like desert. That "explanation" put the end to Romney's candidacy for me.
Marc Jeric, PhD (signatory of both documents referenced above)

john dubose| 8.26.11 @ 6:48AM

What Romney ought to say is that the US government does not really have the means to do anything real about the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. That is because nature and all the other countries are ( in total ) much bigger players than we are. The other countries will not cut their own throats to fix the problem. And all the little creatures and natural processes can not even be talked with. Global warming or not, nothing can be done. Fortunately, even if the world heats up a little life will go on.

Andrew Branca| 8.26.11 @ 10:51AM

When is Romney going to announce his primary challenge to Obama?

William| 8.26.11 @ 7:41PM

Mr Lawler's statement that "[a] majority of Republicans don't believe that global warming is caused by humans" is troubling and, I hope, wrong. One doesn't have to accept all the views of those who seem global warming as an extreme immediate threat to acknowledge that human activities produce by-products that science reasonably associates with global warming. Whether the contribution of human activities is significant given other contributions to global temperatures and the know large fluctuations in these temperatures over hundreds and thousands of years may be questioned, but to insist absolutely that there is simply NO significant relationship is to take a position that has as much scientific foundation as the idea of a flat earth.

I have always wondered why conservative commentators are so quick to agree with liberal commentators that the Republican and/or conservative position is that humans do not (full stop) contribute to global warming. What is the point of taking such narrow and seemingly close-minded view? Argue about the existence of long-term global warming. (Although, the extremists aside, there is certainly substantial scientific evidence for such warming.) Argue about the extent to which human activities contribute to long-term global warming, if it is occurring. Argue about whether, even if humans may be making a significant contribution to global warming, it makes sense to destroy the American economy by taking colossally expensive measures that likely will have no or little effect on the problem. But why deny something that is supported not only by science, but by common sense?

Rob| 8.27.11 @ 12:16AM

Sorry Mitt you lost me with this. To paraphrase Orwell you have to be college graduate to believe such nonsense. No sensible man does

More Blog Posts by Joseph Lawler

http://spectator.org/blog/2011/08/25/mitt-romney-clarifies-climate

ADVERTISEMENT

The Spectacle Blog

NBC News: Holder Personally Approved Fox Reporter Warrant

Ross Kaminsky | 12:45PM

BBC World Survey Ranks Israel Near Bottom in Global Popularity

Aaron Goldstein | 12:36PM

Obamacare is a Big and Growing Problem for Democrats

Ross Kaminsky | 11:03AM

Stein on IRS Scandal

Patrick Ryan | 10:29AM

The Restricted Engine

Yogi Love | 6:00AM

Muslim, Er, Youth Riots in Sweden

Aaron Goldstein | 12:41AM

Good Luck Quin

Aaron Goldstein | 12:13AM

One of The London Soldier Beheading Suspects British Born

Aaron Goldstein | 5.23.13

Latest Headlines

Real Immigration Reform Requires Free Markets

Ross Kaminsky|51 comments

Enough With the Bipartisanship

Matt Purple|30 comments

The United States of El Norte

Larry Thornberry|36 comments

Vodka = Vodka = Vodka

Daniel J. Flynn|53 comments

Laying Down My Pen

Quin Hillyer

Tornado Chasers

Claire Healey|18 comments

We Will Remember

Roger Kaplan|9 comments

The Chinese Waltz

George H. Wittman|1 comment

SPONSORED LINKS

FLASHBACK TO: 1995

Clip of the Day

H/T to National Review Online

ADVERTISEMENT

Home |About |Contributors |Advertise |Donate |Privacy Policy |Contact

The American Spectator Foundation is the 501(c)(3) organization responsible for publishing The American Spectator magazine and training aspiring journalists who espouse traditional American values. Your contributions are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law. Each donor receives a year-end summary of their giving for tax purposes.

Copyright 2013, The American Spectator. All rights reserved.