In the wake of President Obama’s emphatic call for action on climate change in his State of the Union Address, and clear polling numbers showing new public concerns about climate – GOP presidential hopefuls are taking steps to obfuscate their anti-science records.
Mitt Romney told reporters that after believing the scientists in 2010, then mocking the scientists in 2012, he now is back to believing the scientists.
In an interview with WBUR Boston, he elaborated.
“I’m one of those Republicans who thinks we are getting warmer and that we contribute to that,” he said of climate change, charging that federal leaders have failed to enact global agreements needed to tackle the problem.
His evolving platform comes as he works to reshape his image after consecutive presidential defeats. Romney spent little time talking about poverty, the middle class or climate change in a 2012 campaign in which opponents cast him as an out-of-touch millionaire. But in public and private conversations in recent weeks he has focused on poverty, perhaps above all, a dramatic shift for the former private-equity executive.
UPDATE: Not all Republicans are buying it. Conservative Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin tweeted thusly:
Now, one of Romney’s potential opponents, Marco Rubio, has morphed his widely ridiculed “I’m not a scientist” message to, “We can’t ignore the scientists but..”, in an interview with Katie Couric of Yahoo News, above.
One key problem these folks are going to have is their Crazy Uncle in the Basement, Senator Strom..I mean James Inhofe, the 80 year old incoming chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, who hopes to use his new seat as a platform to spew climate denial nonsense on the Senate floor. Science literate voters should make sure that every member of the Republican party be held responsible for the disinformation campaign mounted by one of their most senior colleagues.
Dear Authors,
Please answer this simple question: Is the Earth’s climate primarily determined by activities on the earth or by our sun? If you know the correct answer you understand climate. If you don’t, you don’t.
Piers Corbyn: The Reality of Long Range Weather and Climate Forecasting …: http://youtu.be/6R26PXRrgds
The answer of course, is both.
Venus and Mars, scientists currently think, were once earth-like worlds. Both have become lifeless, one a frigid desert, and the other a molten greenhouse hell, without a tremendous change in the activity of the sun. Presumably the earth is subject to the same laws of physics.