The
New York Times and
Washington Post today both examine the climate change positions of the GOP’s leading presidential candidates. Given the sway of Tea Party activists over the Republican Party, it’s not too surprising that the debate basically pits those who think climate change is outright fraud hatched in East Anglia against those who think climate change is happening, but that we shouldn’t do anything about it.
Tea Party favorites Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann count themselves among the lot of climate change deniers. Bachmann wants to shutter the EPA, the Times notes, while Perry has gone so far as to denounce climate scientists as participants in “one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.” That’s a reference to the much-
debunked Climategate “scandal,” which climate change deniers seized upon, arguing that some snarky emails among climate scientists in Great Britain proved that the overwhelming scientific consensus in favor of anthropogenic climate change was all a great conspiracy. Perry and Bachmann may not deny that the earth is getting warmer, but they flatly rule out any human role, and therefore adamantly oppose carbon-reducing regulations like cap and trade.
Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman are emblematic of the other strain of Republican thinking on climate change. Huntsman, who’s perhaps not coincidentally languishing in the polls, made waves when he said
“All I know is 90 percent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 percent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them.” There’s nothing inherently left-wing in Huntsman’s basic respect for empirical research, but in light of the Tea Party’s Jacksonian (that is, proudly anti-elitist)
tendencies, such talk isn’t going to do much to make Huntsman a real contender for the nomination. Romney, who’s reversed himself on plenty of other issues dear to conservatives’ hearts, does stand a real chance at facing off with President Obama, and his rhetoric on climate change doesn’t differ all that much from Huntsman’s. The Post quotes Romney as saying he accepts the findings of climate scientists – and that the US must reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He goes on to say, however, that it’s called “global warming,” not “American warming,” so until developing countries like China and India sign on to a global climate change agreement, he’s not going to support unilateral action like the House-passed
Waxman-Markey bill of 2009 (a remarkably modest piece of legislation riddled with special interest giveaways that somehow got marred as an ultra-leftist bill). Huntsman (a onetime cap and trade advocate) sounds a similar note, refusing to support any meaningful action on the issue
until the economic slowdown is reversed. Because, you know, climate trends are going to suspend themselves until there’s a consensus that we’re out of the economic woods.
Maybe Romney and Huntsman stop short of calling for specific policy measures because right now, they’re trying to woo skeptical GOP conservatives. Once in office, a President Romney or President Huntsman may well be able to marshal support for a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. There may even be some measure of Nixon-goes-to-China at work. Only a Republican president, one could argue, could garner enough bipartisan support to pass global warming legislation and convince enough Republicans that this all isn’t a money-making venture for Al Gore. Then again, as Tea Party intransigence on the debt ceiling underscored, rank-and-file conservatives in Congress are more than willing to buck establishment Republican leaders to prove their conservative bona fides. Given how deeply entrenched climate change denial is on the right, why would a global warming bill be any different?
It’s all enough to make one understand why David Jenkins of
Republicans for Environmental Protection lamented to the Times on the sorry state of environmental policy among the current crop of GOP contenders.
http://politicsnotasusual.com/2011/08/18/republican-candidates-on-climate-change/ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/us/politics/18epa.html?_r=1&hp http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/perry-and-romney-split-on-climate-change/2011/08/17/gIQAgawNLJ_story.html