One-time presidential hopeful Mitt Romney wrote a book to gain publicity in advance of an all-but-certain 2012 presidential run. He may have terribly miscalculated, however, by writing that he agrees with the overwhelming majority of scientists on the planet in believing that climate change is happening and that human industrial activity is a major factor. As polls demonstrate, a shocking number of members of his party don’t subscribe to that point of view, less now, in fact, than ever before.
Here’s Romney ruining his chance to lead the Republican party for years to come, or at least before the north pole ice caps disappear or Fox News goes off the air:
I believe that climate change is occurring — the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor.
Romney’s book is called “No Apology” but look for it to include a lengthy new introduction when it comes out in paperback in a couple months or weeks qualifying these impulsive statements.
Here’s the Plumline on the results of a December Ipsos/McClatchy poll:
The poll asked whether people believe that the world’s temperature “has been going up slowly over the past 100 years.”
A surprisingly large percentage of Republicans, 43%, say it isn’t happening, versus only 23% of independents and 16% of Dems.
In Colorado, prominent right-wing blogger Ross Kaminsky has set himself up as the anti-Al Gore, a man determined to debunk climate science not by undertaking any scientific training or by doing any climate research for academic review but by merely blogging. Here’s the kind of climate change discussion that features in Kaminsky’s publishing:
To be clear, there is NOTHING in the [global warming] science…even the junk science…that suggests we’re likely to face an “unimaginable calamity”. It’s always funny to think that even if temperatures changed noticeably, humans would somehow be unable to adapt even though humans now live everywhere from northern Canada and Alaska’s frozen tundras to deserts of Africa and China.
In the Kaminsky view, climate change is merely a matter of temperature. Put on a coat. Turn up the a.c. What is it about this that misguided RINOs like Romney and globalists like Gore fail to understand?
Dave Weigel at the Washington Independent writing today on Romney’s book thinks the author will be far out of step with his party on this topic by the time the 2011 Iowa caucuses roll around. Republicans are pulling away in sections from the scientific consensus on climate change like the antarctic ice shelf is peeling off of the continent.
This issue is evolving so fast– with [global warming deniers] like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) becoming Tea Party folk heroes and sites like Pajamas Media demanding that Al Gore return his Academy Award– that by the time Iowa caucus-goers come out, Romney might be in the deep minority of GOPers.
