Mitt Romney Attacked For Being Reasonable About Climate Change

Last week, Mitt Romney rolled out his formal announcement about his presidential ambitions and was met with a torrent of criticism from fellow candidates, other non-candidates, outside groups, and failed Senate candidate Joe Miller, for some reason. For the most part, the internecine opposition has focused on the fact that Mitt Romney invented "Obamacare" in Massachusetts. But Romney's enjoying a break from all of that this week. Now everyone is mad at him for his position on climate change!

And what is that position? Well, it's pretty prosaic:

"I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire.

"It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

Romney also said some rather ordinary things about energy efficiency:

ROMNEY: I also want to see us become more energy efficient. I’m told that we use almost twice as much energy per person as does a European, and more like three times as much as does a Japanese citizen. We could do a lot better. I’d like to see our vehicles, and our homes, and our systems of insulation and so forth become far more efficient. I believe that we have a role in trying to encourage that to happen.

As Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard points out, back in 2008, it was pretty ho-hum to hear a GOP candidate say stuff like this, but now, "conservatives have declared Romney's statement to be 'political suicide.'" Today's Washington Post contains much the same message:

So far, Romney’s reviews from the right are not positive. His views about climate change in particular put him at odds with many in his party’s base.

“Bye-bye, nomination,” Rush Limbaugh said Tuesday on his radio talk show after playing a clip of Romney’s climate remark. “Another one down. We’re in the midst here of discovering that this is all a hoax. The last year has established that the whole premise of man-made global warming is a hoax, and we still have presidential candidates that want to buy into it.”

Then came the Club for Growth, which issued a white paper criticizing Romney. “Governor Romney’s regulatory record as governor contains some flaws,” the report said, “including a significant one — his support of ‘global warming’ policies.”

Post reporters Philip Rucker and Peter Wallsten say that Romney "could easily have said what he knew many in his party’s base wanted to hear." And, indeed, why didn't he? One campaign adviser provides the answer:

“The fact that he doesn’t change his position...that’s the upside for us,” said one Romney adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the campaign. “He’s not going to change his mind on these issues to put his finger in the wind for what scores points with these parts of the party.”

Oh, he's not going to put his finger in the wind and pander to people by changing his answer? I don't know. History has borne out that flip-flopping on positions is the cornerstone of Romney's political strategy. (That's probably why the guy saying otherwise is anonymous and "not authorized to speak on behalf of the campaign.")

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Comments

[simonInRio]

11:40 PM on 06/28/2011

Limbaugh and co. are going to look really, really stupid in 10-20 years and their opponents will be playing these sound bites over and over again during elections, voiced over Hurricane Katrina # 7 or some other appalling human-induced climate disaster. They will look like the the reactionary opponents of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Romney is dead right here, and he´s not going to backtrack, as he will win more votes from the center than he loses from the right, who don´t have much choice but to vote for the GOP or stay at home anyway. The only way the Republicans are going to win the presidency is if they dump the extreme conservatives or if no one turns out to vote. The demographic which elected Obama is the majority and the loony Christians a minority, albeit a large one, and in the future this will be even more so. I doubt whether you can get elected by saying evolution is not a fact, for example, you´d risk being seen to be a stupid as Palin (the candidate, not the Monty Python bloke). He´s actually more dangerous to Obama with these views, which would be an objective reason to get the nomination. Doubt the Republicans will get it, but history shows they do tend to adopt progressive policies, but only once they have already become enshrined. First blacks, now gays and soon enough it´ll be climate, and then Romney will look like the GOP´s only visionary.

[Chris 1]

08:23 PM on 06/20/2011

Meanwhile, not a single link on recent IPCC corruption and conflicts of interest;

http://climateaudit.org/2011/06/18/pachauri-no-conflict-of-interest-policy-for-ar5/

[gallon]

07:58 AM on 06/28/2011

That's right. Not a single legitimate link on your made up scandal.

[Kenz300]

12:42 PM on 06/16/2011

The extreme right wing of the Republican party keeps pushing farther and farther to the right.
Big oil, coal and billionaires keep pushing their agenda and the right wing is buying it.

[Chris 1]

08:25 PM on 06/20/2011

The dolt Hoi Polli left buys the swill that government is their friend.

[bestintravel]

12:42 AM on 06/23/2011

This is a reaction to the administration going further and further to the left. Like a mathematical equation American politics balances itself

[Chris 1]

04:45 PM on 06/14/2011

Geologists address agw junk science dogma and tactics;

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/06/07/climate-isnt-up-for-debate/

Time for the denier tattoo?

[DocSkull]

04:41 PM on 06/15/2011

"Geologists address agw..."

They addressed it, but did they demonstrate a problem? No. It was said that "“Recent research has highlighted the irreversibility of CO2-induced climate change on centennial timescales …..” and “It has become widely recognized that under a changing climate, the frequency and intensity of meteorological/hydrological extreme events and associated damage costs would more likely increase in the 21st century.”

Keep up the good work.

[jimboy71]

06:53 PM on 06/15/2011

The first word in the link is "opinion".

Whatever, Chris.

[eaarth2]

05:10 PM on 06/12/2011

Calling those who believe in science & AGW 'Intellectual Liberals' sounds eerily like that of Spiro Agnew calling those who opposed the war in Vietnam 'An effete Corp of impudent snobs'-- or worse what a right wing regime in Europe called some intellectuals in Europe circa 1933.

It seems tragic however that the USA has gone down the road to this kind of intellectual emptiness. And what is even worse a fair amount of Americans buy this, by an equally complicit paid off media who stands idly buy protecting its profits.

[jimboy71]

06:54 PM on 06/15/2011

And how about the release of all the files proving that Agnew et al were lyi/ng through their teeth the whole time?

[old soil guy]

02:32 AM on 06/12/2011

If Romney somehow get the nomination it will be like a miracle. But, even though I'm a solid progressive, he does same some things I can agree with. Is this what is meant bi-partisian, compromise? Unless the tea party can raise enough to out buy moderates this next election the tea party will go under. But then they have the Koch brothers behind them and Citizens United...................

[StephenBP]

05:27 PM on 06/11/2011

Mitt runs the risk of being disinherited if he runs against the petro powers. The petroleum lords want us to remain completely dependent upon their whims. They've controlled the Republican party openly since the time of Ronald Reagan and any attempt to reduce our consumption of petroleum fuel by using alternative energy sources will be met with a withering hail of whines about every possible downside of alternatives, and also with misinformation about the threat of human cause global warming.

[Javani]

06:10 PM on 06/11/2011

"and any attempt to reduce our consumptio­n of petroleum fuel by using alternativ­e energy sources"

What on earth does that have to do with cap and trade?

Romney is or was the pre-Obama. The private. ins. cos. paid him off to institute Romneycare, as they did later with Obama. Romney was also big in the North East cap and trade regional scam. The Democratic Money interests love Romney because he is the same safe bet for the money as Obama. Usually Democrat scammers and Republican scammers come from different financial sectors. With Romney, the powers now in control have a safe alternative to Obama, so you will see plenty of praising....just like McCain, another believer in the cap and trade scam.

[StephenBP]

06:17 PM on 06/11/2011

You brought up cap and trade.
Why?

[DocSkull]

07:00 AM on 06/17/2011

"The private. ins. cos. paid him off to institute Romneycare­..."

Insurance companies like the present system. Their input was to save as much of it as they could in the face of public support for more health insurance. No one likes that emergency rooms are the only source of health care for millions of Americans.

[StephenBP]

01:49 PM on 06/11/2011

Mitt shows that he is the only Republican presidential candidate who may possibly be getting the basic science of climate change right.

Of course, for a brief time during the 2000 presidential campaign, little double-u lied an"w" said that he thought that CO2 was a pollutant and should be regulated.

[Richard2]

11:48 AM on 06/11/2011

Romney should consider the pickle the Brits have got themselves into:

"Last October, this column pointed out the extra cost on our fuel bills from the EU obligation to provide 20 per cent of energy from renewable sources by 2020 (the "20:20:20"). In total, our climate policies add the equivalent of four pence in the pound on income tax to domestic consumers' costs. This week, Scottish Power announced price rises of 10 per cent for electricity, so the swingeing increases are coming fast. The carbon floor price will make them greater still.

It is predicted by almost every expert in the field that the renewable target will not, in fact, be met. This, too, is emerging earlier than first thought. Onshore wind-power, which was built on the expectation of 33 per cent average capacity, has recently been coming in at nearer 22 per cent. Public resistance to the turbines has slowed construction. Offshore ones cost twice as much per gigawatt as nuclear or (if you include the carbon price) gas. Conversion on the scale, at the cost, and in the time demanded simply cannot be done. So one must add another prediction: our politicians will quite soon have to wriggle out of it."

In the Telegraph.

[StephenBP]

01:43 PM on 06/11/2011

If you include the projected cost of global warming to mankind, wind power is a bargain at many times its projected cost.

[Richard2]

04:43 PM on 06/11/2011

Perhaps we should go back to traveling by sailing ship from New York to Europe.
Now why don't we still do this? And why aren't products shipped around the world using sailing ships?

1. Wind power isn't reliable. 2. Wind power isn't constant. 3. Wind power can't be turned up when there is a need for an additional increment of power. 4.Wind power is expensive. 5. Wind power is dangerous when it isn't available during a weather emergency.

The world found better and cheaper ways of powering ships across the seas, more than 100 years ago. Why do you want humans to be completely dependent upon the whims of the elements?

[bestintravel]

12:49 AM on 06/23/2011

Sell that idea to the Chinese. That should slow them down some.

[Publicola]

02:06 PM on 06/12/2011

Richard2: "Why do you want humans to be completely dependent upon the whims of the elements? "

Why do you Richard2 keep lying and otherwise keep obfuscating the truth?

Speaking of, why do you also deny that Creationists are science deniers?

[Richard2]

11:27 AM on 06/11/2011

Yesterday, as some areas of the east of England were declared in a state of drought, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman was quick to blame the shortage of water on the ‘big challenge of climate change’.

It was the typical knee-jerk reaction of an obsessively ‘green’ government which – in order to justify its punitive environmental taxes and draconian targets to reduce CO2 emissions – sees evidence of global warming everywhere it looks.

As former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull said this week in a truly withering critique, ministers and their officials have deliberately ignored the huge doubts surrounding climate change science.
‘From our politicians we need open-mindedness, more rationality, less emotion and less religiosity; and an end to the alarmist propaganda and to attempts to frighten us and our children,’ he wrote.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2002316/Britain-afford-green-madness.html#ixzz1Oyt4ZU44

[Publicola]

02:10 PM on 06/12/2011

Oh look,

Yet another cut-and-paste from a tabloid OpEd by Richard2.

You're diligent at cutting-and-pasting from science denier OpEds to here on HuffPo, R2 - do you get paid by the word?

[Robco1]

04:56 PM on 06/14/2011

From Jim Hoggan, June 15 2009: http://www.desmogblog.com/slamming-the-climate-skeptic-scam

"If you are actually practicing public relations, take a close look at your clients and at your own performance. There has to be a point where principle trumps short-term economic gain, a point where you admit to yourself that it’s not worth the money to put the planet at risk.

"Whatever you do, you must keep a wary eye. By all means, read the sites that deny the reality of climate change. But then check on www.sourcewatch.org to see who paid for those opinions. Read the DeSmogBlog. Don't accept the word of people who pass themselves off as "skeptics." Be skeptical yourself. Ask yourself what motive the scientific community has to gang up and invent a phony climate crisis. Compare that to the motives that ExxonMobil or Peabody Coal might have to deny that burning fossil fuels indiscriminately could change irrevocably our existence on the planet."

[The Big John]

04:52 PM on 06/10/2011

Its about time a Republican nominee came out of the cave.

[AJH]

04:31 PM on 06/10/2011

Mitt can only be construed as reasonable in comparrison to the psych ward that is the other candidates.

By now we all know Mitt is a political weathervane and all I will give him credit for is understanding he will need to win the independent middle to win the election and he can't do that by joining the psych ward. That doesn't make him reasonable.

[sonjasmom]

04:16 PM on 06/10/2011

We should pity the right wing. The overwhelming science shows that climate change or "global weirding" is a fact. The problem is, the right doesn't like any of the solutions which have been suggested so far, so they are trying to deny there is a problem. If there were a solution to rising CO2 levels which didn't impact their energy company paymasters, the repubs/TP wouldn't have to be in such deep denial.

[ubrew12]

12:46 AM on 06/11/2011

'pity' isn't the right word. It may have been, once. There's a small chance that their foot-dragging on this issue will condemn humanity to a mean, sorry future. I don't 'pity' people like that. I hate them.

[kappaangel]

03:35 PM on 06/10/2011

To Grunty 1...Yes, I have basic reading comprehension and have made a fairly good living because of it. For 25 years I worked on the air in televison, and was the only moderate in any of the news rooms, BTW, I think the ACA, Affordable Care Act, is a joke.

[4RealMan]

02:10 PM on 06/10/2011

Only the republican and their silly voters would believe that somehow the majority of the WORLD scientists are working for the Dems and so they made up global warming. For those of you who vote Repub, whom do you trust about SCIENCE?? Your party leaders or SCIENTISTS!!!!??!

[Jim Milks]

03:04 PM on 06/10/2011

They trust their party leaders, of course. Everyone knows that their leaders (especially Rush, Sean, and Glenn) are unbiased, objective, and knowledgeable sources of truth whereas scientists are greedy, corrupt corporate lackeys who want to destroy our freedoms. Right?