US Republican candidate sparks hunt for Scottish climate skeptic university

Seemingly sensible Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman decided yesterday to court the climate skeptic vote by reversing his support for the scientific consensus on climate change – all because of work by a Scottish university.

At right wing think tank the Heritage Foundation’s weekly Bloggers Briefing, Huntsman said the US could not afford to jeopardise its economic recovery for the sake of combating climate change, suggesting that the scientific debate should “play out” before making policy to mitigate the impact of global warming.

Asked whether he had changed his position on climate science, Huntsman replied:

“I’m not a physicist, I’m not a scientist. I tend to defer to those who do it for a living. I’d be prepared to take it out of the political milieu and put it into the scientific milieu. There are questions about the validity of the science – evidence by one university over in Scotland recently.”

But which Scottish university does he mean? Think Progress  notes:

“It is not clear what ‘university over in Scotland’ Huntsman meant. The universities and colleges of Scotland have signed the Universities and Colleges Climate Commitment of Scotland, which states:

We recognise thescale and speed of climate change, and the likely effect on Scotland’s people and places, impacting adversely on our economy, society and environment. [â?¦] We acknowledge the Scottish Government objective – to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050 – to avert the worst impacts of climate change; and realise we have a role to play in this.”

Huntsman’s statement certainly came as news to  Universities Scotland‘s press spokesperson, whose response we will post as soon as she’s rung round to see what he was talking about.

Huntsman is the kind of Republican that would normally give mystified UK observers of the presidential race in the party cause for encouragement, as he has in the past  said he believes in evolution and trusts scientists on climate science.

He  is also on record as saying that the Republican party would have a “serious problem” if it became the “anti-science party”:

“When we take a position that isn’t willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Science – Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on the wrong side of science, and, therefore, in a losing position.”

Huntsman’s decision to shift his confidence in 98 per cent of scientists to a mysterious Scottish university has skeptic blogger  Mark Morano gleefully noting: “Now there are no warmists among GOP candidates!”

Indeed, this appears to be true. Fellow nominee Newt Gingrich – who for a while appeared to accept the premise behind man-made global warming – has also  ditched the science stuff. As  Time notes, their decisions have thrown hopes that Republican presidential candidates would debate the best policies to deal with climate change into the long grass.

Instead, both are now saying the science is not settled enough for politicians to legitimately take measures. As authors Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway have exhaustively documented in their book Merchants of Doubt, by  overplaying scientific uncertainty – saying that scientists don’t yet know enough for politicians to take measures against global warming – special interests can ensure policymaking is blocked.

Huntsman denied on Tuesday that he’s shifted position on global warming:

“Do I defer to science and those that happen to do this for a living on this issue? Yeah, I do.”

Earlier this year he said in an  interview with Time:

“I’m not a meteorologist. All I know is 90 per cent of the scientists say climate change is occurring. If 90 per cent of the oncological community said something was causing cancer we’d listen to them.”

Huntsman has certainly shifted his rhetoric – he’s no longer the pro-science candidate who defers to 98 per cent of climate scientists, he’s the pro-science candidate who has been swayed by (apparently) a single Scottish university’s work and decided to side-step climate policy discussion in a recession.

Now, if only we could figure out which Scottish university had overturned the scientific consensus on climate change…