Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech Gets Cheers When It Comes to Accepting Global Warming

This is only a portion of Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech from Thursday night. In less than two minutes, and mostly using political code words such as “protect the sanctity of life” and “honor the institution of marriage,” The GOP nominee touches on themes meant to fire up the base of the GOP: taxes, gay marriage and abortion. You would think that any of his pledges on these hot button issues would bring the house down.

            It is when he gets to the environment and its protection, saying, “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet . . . My promise is to help you and your family,” that the crowd in the convention hall is truly electrified.

This is big crazy if ever there was big crazy. As I’ve pointed out before, this has been going on with the Grand Old Party for over 30 years, politicizing the environment. It is nonetheless surprising—and I have to admit, a little scary, too—to see an entire convention of people cheering on the warming planet, the rising oceans, and a political system that is incapable and unwilling to do anything about it.

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama: What Their Campaigns Say About the Environment

As it is that I’m concerned about the environment and how our thinking about the environment affects the manner in which we live our lives and how those actions affect our rivers and streams, the air we breath, and the creatures that share this planet with us, I venture into the political from time to time to examine the thinking behind new or proposed legislation or the rhetoric about the environment that comes from candidates and parties. I have pointed out that some of the rhetoric of the GOP over the last 30 years runs counter to its traditional conservationist attitude toward the environment. And some of what the Grand Old Party says and does also strikes me as weird or crazy.

            That being said, it piqued my curiosity to look at the websites of the presidential candidates governor Mitt Romney and president Barack Obama to see what they both had to say about the environment.

            Energy and the environment are listed as issues addressed on Obama’s campaign website. Clicking into that webpage, topics include wilderness protection, increasing the fuel economy of our automobiles, as well as improving the quality of our air. Some of the ideas listed on this page I consider dubious. With the environmental destruction of modern mining methods, no kind of coal is ever clean, no matter how many times you scrub it. Constructing great wind farms in the desert can also affect the land and be deadly for birds and bats.

I don’t’ believe that Barack Obama has a great environmental record. But whether or not I agree with the policies and actions he endorses, the President has established the environment as a campaign issue.

On the other hand, clicking over to Mitt Romney’s website, of the 24 subjects that his campaign lists as issues, the environment is not mentioned once. If you look at the Energy issue page, it says that Mitt Romney, as president, will “make every effort to safeguard the environment.” And yet a familiar trope of “regulatory reform,” which means loosening or doing completely away with environmental laws appears further down the page.

Even among Democrats the environment is not a big issue right now, overshadowed by jobs and pocketbook concerns. And yet it seems so odd to me that someone could run for president and expect votes from a constituency that is unconcerned about the health and safety of our waters or our ability to breath clean air.

Those Who Disparage Climate Scientists Can Take a Vacation

I sometimes wonder why there is an industry that disparages the scientists who investigate climate change and the work that they do. If the Heartland Institute, Forbes Magazine, Fox News, and other organizations like them stopped their attacks on climate scientists, would it make any difference? Would there be serious discussion and action to reduce our carbon emissions?
             One of the latest opinion pieces from the Forbes is tediously silly. Because R.A. Pielke, a meteorologist with a skeptical yet nuanced view of the current understanding of climate change, criticized on his blog what appears to be a stupid statement in a scientific paper on climate, the Heartland Institute’s James Taylor insists that this is proof that the whole endeavor to understand how our use of fossil fuels is warming our planet is nothing but a house of cards. By his way of thinking, one corrupt judge is proof that the entire judiciary is morally bankrupt, and one bad teacher demonstrates the hollowness of our educational system.
             Obviously this cramped and weak reasoning is enough for the true believers who still disbelieve that the world was warming, even when they are presented with the most convincing evidence. And manufacturing doubt sways a few additional folks as well.
             But if the Heartland Institute stopped its attacks, if Forbes magazine stopped publishing dubious op-eds on climate scientists, if Fox News started reporting facts instead of opinion, would it make any difference?
            Mitt Romney, who only two years ago acknowledged the human thumbprint of global warming in his book, No Apology, has adopted a line acceptable to the GOP to become their nominee. Speaking at a recent closed-door fundraiser, he said, “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO₂ emissions is not the right course for us.” This line rings with doppelganger-like similarity to George W. Bush’s climate change mantra that more research needed to be done before we took any action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

But with Barack Obama, who, like Romney, has also acknowledged that humans are causing climate change, we have a president who is running for reelection and is in the meanwhile saying nothing about global warming. On his recent energy tour—in which he talked about his “all of the above” energy strategy, which includes a reliance on fossil fuels—not once did he mention climate change, greenhouse gasses, or global warming.

             So there you have the two candidates’ stances on global warming: a policy of glib doubt or silence. The Heartland Institute could probably lay off its staff that attacks climate scientists, and Forbes could probably take the space in its magazine devoted to global warming and use it for something else, because right now, no matter who you vote for, it looks like Heartland, Forbes, Fox, and all the big business that they speak for will get their way: Nothing is going to change except the climate.