Mitt Romney Embraces Climate Denial: 'We Don't Know What's Causing Climate Change'

WASHINGTON -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy this summer, telling a crowd in Manchester, N.H., that humans are at least somewhat responsible for climate change. Now Think Progress reports he's reversing his position, arguing "we don't know what's causing climate change."

"My view is that we don't know what's causing climate change on this planet," he said at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pa. "And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us. My view with regards to energy policy is pretty straightforward: I want us to become energy secure and independent of the oil cartels."

Think Progress' Brad Johnson has the video:

The remarks come in stark contrast to his stated energy policy priorities.

"I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he said at a town hall this June. "It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

With his fellow GOP presidential contenders engaging in different shades of climate denial, Romney has distanced himself from those remarks. In an Oct. 3 interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader posted online Thursday night, he elaborates on his new position on global warming.

"I say it's probably happening, all right? I think it's happening," he said when questioned about a passage in his 2010 book "No Apology" that deals with climate change.

"You said in June you believe the world is getting warmer and that humans have contributed to that," noted one reporter, quoting a line that comes directly from his book.

"And continue to the next line after that," Romney pressed.

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

"I say in the book three things," said a frustrated Romney. "One, I believe what I said before, I think it's getting warmer. Two, I believe we contribute to it. And three, I don't know by how much -- a lot or a little. And I am not willing to adopt multitrillion dollar programs to reduce greenhouse gases in America. They don't call it America warming, they call it global warming."

As president, Romney added, he would "aggressively develop oil and gas, as well as use our coal resources." Nuclear too would be a priority, though he said that it would require a long lead time.

"Of course I like the renewable resources, but I'm not in favor of sending checks for half a billion dollars as a venture capitalist to various favored solar companies," he said, in a conspicuous reference to Solyndra.

Romney's climate denial puts him in line with most every other contender in the Republican presidential field.

Herman Cain has called the very premise of climate change "a scam," while former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) has referred to it as nothing more than a "trend," accusing the left of "taking advantage" of it by creating "a beautifully concocted scheme because they know that the earth is gonna cool and warm."

Back in 2009, meanwhile, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) argued on the House floor that the very concept of global warming is faulty because "carbon dioxide is a natural byproduct of nature!"

In an August stump speech, Texas Gov. Rick Perry took the skepticism about climate change one step further, telling a New Hampshire business crowd that scientists have cooked up the data on global warming for the cash.

"We're seeing weekly, or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what's causing the climate to change," Perry said at the time. "Yes, our climates change. They've been changing ever since the earth was formed."

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has become increasingly skeptical of climate change, calling it "the greatest hoax I think that has been around for many, many years, if not hundreds of years," in a 2009 interview with Fox News.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) appeared alongside former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a 2008 ad that urged the country to address climate change, but has since switched to denial.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is the only mainstream Republican presidential contender who has been outspoken about the need for climate action, calling Republicans' failure to address climate change at the national level "immensely frustrating." Within the GOP presidential field, he's green advocates' best hope.

Watch Romney explain his new-found climate denial in his meeting with the New Hampshire Union Leader. Discussion of energy policy begins just before the 22-minute mark.

Comments

[Genders]

05:31 PM on 11/07/2011

Gee, could it be the 200 times all the volcanoes combined CO2 that humans emit?

[maxwells]

03:00 PM on 11/05/2011

That's Mitt's Tea Party speech. He's known for at least a decade that the burning of fossil fuels is driving global warming and climate change, just like Bush before him knew it.

These guys aren't that dumb. They just think that you are.

[StephenBP]

05:08 PM on 11/04/2011

See, this is the beauty of bought-and-paid-for government, the kind that Mitt the Flip supports. Mitt may not know what is going on with the climate, but he sure as Hades knows where the most money can be had in the political jungle. A right wing politician needs to "just say no"to climate change, in order to get access to mega bucks of fossil fuel spending change.

[Pete K]

08:12 AM on 11/03/2011

Romney doesn't know anything about climate change but 99% of the world's top scientist do. Then again Republican spokeswoman has said we can't believe scientist because you have to know science to debate it. Therefore sticking ones head in the sand is the approved Republican platform.

[mggwa]

10:22 AM on 11/02/2011

“U.S. National Academies of Sciences letter (May, 2010):
http://www­.sciencema­g.org/cont­ent/328/59­79/689.ful­l

(excerpt) "When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentiall­y catastroph­ic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet."

I trust that many readers see the logical flaw here -- it is called the "Fallacy of the False Alternatives", insisting that if you don't subscribe to the entire program as dished out to you, you are not subscribing to ANY of it. That is false.

I know very few people, maybe none, that say there is no global warming. On the other hand, I also know very few people willing to send 100 billion dollars a year to Africa (Nigeria mostly) to "fix it".

When a "national" anything makes a proclamation, it is by its very nature political rather than scientific.

How much more immediately dangerous and certain is an asteroid collision with Earth? Why is there no hysteria about a thing that would instantly erase all life on Earth? I will tell you why; there is no political benefit to creating that fear since also there is not much one can do about it.

"Follow the money" and you will find the true purpose of global warming politics.

[BlackbirdHighway]

05:38 AM on 11/05/2011

"willing to send 100 billion dollars a year to Africa (Nigeria mostly) to "fix it""

Well, I've never heard of anyone advocating that. Where did you get that idea?

[mggwa]

11:51 AM on 11/05/2011

Many sources. The exact amount of money demanded depends somewhat on who is doing the asking.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/21/climate-change-uganda-salt-miners

"The gathering of environment ministers and officials at UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, on 29 November may seem a world away, but development campaigners say progress towards a deal to raise $100bn (62bn) a year by 2020 to help poorer countries such as Uganda adapt to climate change is essential."

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/08/cop-16-un-conference-dele_n_794094.html

"It will be 'challenging but feasible and doable even in the context of the ongoing economic crisis' to raise $100 billion a year by 2020, as promised by richer nations at last year's climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Ban said."

[mggwa]

11:55 AM on 11/05/2011

Now that you have seen the authority for the $100 billion dollars, how about the REASON for it?

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2010/11/18/un-ipcc-official-we-redistribute-worlds-wealth-climate-policy

"If you needed any more evidence that the entire theory of manmade global warming was a scheme to redistribute wealth you got it Sunday when a leading member of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told a German news outlet, '[W]e redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy.' "

[Orkneygal]

11:42 PM on 11/01/2011

From Matt Ridley's Angus Millar lecture in Edinburgh.

"So what’s the problem? The problem is that you can accept all the basic tenets of greenhouse physics and still conclude that the threat of a dangerously large warming is so improbable as to be negligible, while the threat of real harm from climate-mitigation policies is already so high as to be worrying, that the cure is proving far worse than the disease is ever likely to be. Or as I put it once, we may be putting a tourniquet round our necks to stop a nosebleed.

I also think the climate debate is a massive distraction from much more urgent environmental problems like invasive species and overfishing.

I was not always such a “lukewarmer”. In the mid 2000s one image in particular played a big role in making me abandon my doubts about dangerous man-made climate change: the hockey stick*. It clearly showed that something unprecedented was happening.....and it has been published in Nature magazine.

Yet it has been utterly debunked by the work of Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick...The graph relies heavily on some flawed data – strip-bark tree rings from bristlecone pines -- and on a method of principal component analysis, called short centering, that heavily weights any hockey-stick shaped sample at the expense of any other sample. When I say heavily – I mean 390 times."

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/1/scientific-heresy.html

[Erin Dobrinen]

02:52 PM on 11/02/2011

So....being that you're so very up on the research how is it that you don't know that the (Koch brothers) funded research to "debunk" man-made climate change actually confirmed it?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/richard-muller-koch-brothers-funded-scientist-declares-global-warming-real-article-1.969870?localLinksEnabled=false
Just thought you'd want to know.

[Micah Jordan]

10:15 AM on 11/03/2011

Erin,

The Koch brothers did not confrim "man-made climate change". In your link it clearly states this. They only concluded that the earth is getting warmer. They cleary state that they did not do any independent research on the causes or the effects of the earth getting warmer. Maybe you misspoke, which is understandable. But there is a big difference in confirming Global Warming vs. Man-Made Global Warming.

The main argument of most skeptics is not whether or not the earth is warming or cooling. The skeptics (most that I know) simply do not buy into the notion that man is causing climate-change (Global Warming).

What is so funny is that most of the media has these special reports on "Climate Change" and how there is all this proof of the earth warming and then automatically conclude. See its warming, since we producing all of the CO2 (show shots of smokestacks and traffic highways), Man is causing this and we have GOT to do something about it.

When in fact, the reports, most of the time, show no Causality link between C02 emissions and Global Warming (which is the central point to this whole issue) The main burden of proof is on Causality.

[BlackbirdHighway]

05:41 AM on 11/05/2011

"utterly debunked by the work of Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick"

Pure fantasy. McIntyre and McKitrick are the ones who have been debunked. The hockey stick has been proven over and over and over.

[jbmorgen1]

04:01 PM on 10/31/2011

Mitt is truely a political flip flopper to the core, he cannot stick to an issue and defend his position...and he wants to be president. A president that can order nuclear be deploy against some poor souls, no, Mitt is NOT fit for the job.

[Charlie Feather]

03:39 PM on 10/31/2011

Mitt Romney Embraces Climate Denial: 'We Don't Know What's Causing Climate Change’

Hey! Mitt! The sun is causing climate change!

[Charlie Feather]

03:37 PM on 10/31/2011

To DocSkull: Why don’t your comments have a ‘reply’ button? It’s very inconvenient replying to you without it. There is something wrong about this page.

Anyway, pollution can only be limited in marginal ways. What would you have people do? Stop breathing? Stop existing?

Nonetheless, pollution from natural sources exceeds anything man produces. One erupting volcano can change the climate within a year, something it would take man decades to do. And we adapt to that. Remember, the whole dynamics of evolution is adaptation.

As far as the technical details to rehabilitating the soil, we can leave that to the experts. Just in my garden I’ve taken poor soil and through fertilizers and compost I’ve created a productive soil that produces more than we can consume. Don’t be daunted by the scale.

"Deserts bloom from irrigation water, the very thing that we won't have.”

And why wouldn’t we have water? What? Is it just going to disappear? Do you think that the evaporation process is going to somehow cease happening and clouds will cease forming and rain will cease falling? Desertification in some regions will be compensated by increased rainfall in others.

I’l referring to Medieval Warm Period, which I’m sure you are familiar with, which made everyone who experienced it very happy.

[ClimateHawk]

08:21 PM on 11/01/2011

You should be more skeptical of your sources of information.

Many of your comments are not consistent with the scientific research.

[Charlie Feather]

02:20 AM on 11/02/2011

I need examples.

[jwcmass]

10:40 PM on 11/01/2011

Charlie, I would suggest you read what actual climatologists are saying, because you don't seem to be aware of the RAPIDITY of the warming -- which is making it very difficult for organisms to adapt. For one thing, habitat is disappearing from the planet so rapidly that many species cannot just "migrate" -- Whole species are disappearing in the world's rainforests as farmers or ranchers are burning and replacing rainforest (an excellent ABSORBER of CO2) and are instead transferring it to ranches -- many of them cattle ranches (This is where you hear about the methane that cattle produce.) Other organisms are VERY temperature sensitive and CANNOT move -- coral is a good example of this -- and coral reefs are the rain forests of the ocean -- there is a whole ecosystem which depends on coral reefs for survival. Take away the coral, and the whole ecosystem collapses. You have to remember that in the past (250 million years ago) mass extinction events almost eliminated all multi-cellular life on the planet. That was caused by a super-volcanic eruption (or series of eruptions) in what is now Siberia. And the warming was so rapid that most species were not able to adapt, and simply became instinct. Some scientists believe that we are in a mass extinction event NOW (see what is happening to phytoplankton -- who absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere). ctd.

[Charlie Feather]

02:37 AM on 11/02/2011

Lot of what scientists predict are based on their climate models, which are likely too simplistic for such a complex system like weather. Nonetheless, what you are speaking of far exceeds the problem of CO2 produced by man and any global warming effect this might have. Anyway, I’ve read that the planet has ceased warming since 1998.

[sparafucilli]

11:17 AM on 10/31/2011

Wonderful. And as President this guy will have highly paid scientific advisers to whom he won't give credence. Again wonderful. Three cheers for the know-nothings.

[sinner11]

10:59 AM on 10/31/2011

Yeah, just like how we don't know what causes diseases.

[Screed]

08:33 AM on 10/31/2011

This guy spins so much he could do a quadruple lutz.

[Novelist56]

08:23 AM on 10/31/2011

Which Romney? There's four or five of him!!!

[okiedemocrat]

07:32 AM on 10/31/2011

Flip flop, flip flop. McCain in drag.

[ross nichols]

07:06 AM on 10/31/2011

Even if it was a hoax,it would be to our advantage to create new fuels,and help save the earths resources.Reducing pollution,etc. DUH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!