Perry and Romney split on global warming

A sharp divide has emerged between two leading Republican presidential candidates on the issue of climate change. While apparent front-runner Mitt Romney believes the world is getting warmer and that humans are contributing to that pattern, Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday called that “a scientific theory that has not been proven.” Taking questions at the storied Politics and Eggs breakfast in Bedford, N.H., Perry was asked about a passage in his ... Full Story »

Posted by Fabrice Florin - via Google News (Climate Change), Memeorandum, Salvador Sala (t), Thanh Tran (t)

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Review

Lynn R. Willis
4.6
by Lynn R. Willis - Aug. 17, 2011

This is excellent journalism. In something around 600 words this article concisely summarizes the positions on global warming of 3 Republican candidates. In the same journalistic breath, the article shows how these candidates differ with regard to their understanding of how science and scientists work at answering questions. Romney and Huntsman both emerge as men who can put what science tells us about climate change into a credible world view that doesn't necessarily put self-interest ahead of what the data indicate. Perry, on the other hand, clearly has an agenda that doesn't suffer scientific data well. What is most telling here is how he insists on discounting the mounds of data that support the notion that the climate is changing, and rapidly, by citing the now-debunked charges that some scientists fudged their data.

I suspect that were I to go looking I would find Perry using the same quote, i.e., "...a scientific theory that has not been proven" when he expresses his views on evolution, too. The author cites Huntsman as viewing Perry as "outside the mainstream" on this issue. One can only hope, but there are lots of folks out there who seem content to get their scientific information from the likes of Rush Limbaugh. More's the pity.

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Lynn's Rating

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4.6

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