Republican Pres. Candidate Tancredo ignores climate science at political peril

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By the looks of things Republican Presidential candidate Tom Tancredo doesn’t have a hope in heck of winning the 2008 nomination, and he’s not helping himself much by making incorrect claims about the state of global warming science.

At June 23rd townhall meeting in Littleton, New Hampshire, Tancredo states that:

Most evidence does not substantiate the claim that it [global warming] is caused by human activity, or at least to the extent that it would change things one way or the other.”

Watch it here:

Tancredo also states that, “there’s a pile of studies this high that says ‘yes it’s caused by man’… and there’s a pile of studies [equally] high that says ‘no it’s not,’ that it’s a natural phenomenon.”

“…and it’s almost audacious to think that humans can actually change this pattern.”

These statement fly in the face of the most recent reports by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that has concluded with over 90% certainty that the increased concentrations of man-made heat-trapping gases caused most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since 1950.

And to his own political peril Tancredo is also ignoring a recent CNN opinion poll finding that the majority of Americans (54%) believe that global warming is a proven fact and is mostly caused by emissions from cars and industrial facilities such as power plants and factories. When you couple these findings with another poll finding that one-third of Americans cited global warming as the world’s single largest environmental problem, it is clear that Tancredo is on the wrong side of the issue.

Americans are waking up to the issue of global warming and want to see something done about it, that is clear. What remains unclear is what Tancredo is thinking. By ignoring the science and making misleading statements about the realities of global warming Tancredo is ensuring that his presidential candidacy numbers stay in the single digits.

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Kevin is a contributor and strategic adviser to DeSmogBlog.

He runs the digital marketing agency Spake Media House. Named a “Green Hero” by Rolling Stone Magazine and one of the “Top 50 Tweeters” on climate change and environment issues, Kevin has appeared in major news media outlets around the world for his work on digital campaigning.

Kevin has been involved in the public policy arena in both the United States and Canada for more than a decade. For five years he was the managing editor of DeSmogBlog.com. In this role, Kevin’s research into the “climate denial industry” and the right-wing think tank networks was featured in news media articles around the world. He is most well known for his ground-breaking research into David and Charles Koch’s massive financial investments in the Republican and tea party networks.

Kevin is the first person to be designated a “Certified Expert” on the political and community organizing platform NationBuilder.

Prior to DeSmogBlog, Kevin worked in various political and government roles. He was Senior Advisor to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and a Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Asia Pacific, Foreign Affairs for the Government of Canada. Kevin also worked in various roles in the British Columbia provincial government in the Office of the Premier and the Ministry of Health.

In 2008 Kevin co-founded a groundbreaking new online election tool called Vote for Environment which was later nominated for a World Summit Award in recognition of the world’s best e-Content and innovative ICT applications.

Kevin moved to Washington, DC in 2010 where he worked for two years as the Director of Online Strategy for Greenpeace USA and has since returned to his hometown of Vancouver, Canada.

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