Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney now seems to have made a very conscious decision in choosing to break with Republican orthodoxy by saying on Friday that he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change. "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." Personally, I could not disagree more. I’ve always thought of this global warming/climate change nonsense as being the ideal issue that could be used to define, clearly, the very obvious differences between Barry and any Republican candidate. And with Romney taking his present position he’s accomplished nothing more than to simply blur the line
The former Massachusetts governor fielded questions on topics ranging from the debt ceiling to abortion on his first official day of campaigning for 2012 Republican primary nomination. Romney leads opinion polls in New Hampshire by a very comfortable margin, which should really come as a surprise to no one, and he is among the top contenders nationally to win the Republican contest to challenge Democrat Barry “Almighty.” But now, besides having the obvious Romneycare cross to bear, he may now have ignited somewhat of a new source of concern for conservatives by his essentially choosing to side with the man-made global warming/climate change nuts. I must confess, though I have been a supporter of his in the past, and I was definitely leaning in his direction this time around. But my support for him is beginning to wane, a bit, at this point. If I wanted to vote for a supporter of man-made climate change, I’d be voting for Barry.
In taking his present stand in the way he has now chosen to address the issue of climate change and energy policy, Romney has veered away, somewhat, from the party's typical position regarding the issue. A position that consists of general skepticism on all matters dealing with any supposed “cause” of global warming. He has called on the United States to break its dependence on foreign oil and expand alternative energies including solar, wind, nuclear and clean coal. "I love solar and wind (power) but they don't drive cars. And we're not all going to drive Chevy Volts," he said, referring to electric cars. The United States cannot go it alone in any attempt to trim emissions levels and give a free pass to countries such as China and Brazil, Romney said. "It's not called American warming, it's called global warming," he said. Republicans in the U.S. Congress oppose cap-and-trade legislation to reduce carbon emissions and are generally cool to the idea that global warming is caused by human activity.
However, as Massachusetts governor in 2005, Romney did choose to back a carbon-trading pact among northeastern U.S. states. Software developer Michael Hillinger, 60, of Hanover, New Hampshire, posed the climate change question at the town hall. Romney's answer provided plenty of wiggle-room, Hillinger said, but "he is taking a more forthright stand than any of the other candidates." I find myself being in disagreement with Mr. Hillinger. It was at an event in Manchester last week, that former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, also running for president, said that climate change is "the newest excuse to take control of lives" by "left-wing intellectuals." And this is, I think, pretty much the general perception that much more closely resembles that of a substantial number of conservatives. So for Romney to come out and rather forcefully take a position that run completely counter to this does, I think, pose some serious risks. And besides, it doesn’t make much sense to me.
But Romney, in a sense, is not alone in his opinion. However, where Republican candidates Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman had initially showed support for cap-and-trade plans when they were governors of Minnesota and Utah, respectively, they have since distanced themselves from their support of those plans. Pawlenty in 2007 pushed for large reductions in greenhouse gases, but later flipped to call plans to curb climate change "overly bureaucratic" and an economic burden. Republican primary voters are typically the most conservative and the least likely to embrace climate measures. In a Gallup poll in March, Democrats were found to be 40 percentage points more likely to register concern about global warming than Republicans, and 35 points more likely to agree that global warming was caused by humans. With such a glaring difference I can’t help but wonder what it is that Romney hopes to gain by taking his present position on this very volatile issue. I just don’t see the method to his madness.
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