With Santorum Out, Will Romney Go Green Again?

 
romney santorum

Santorum is officially out of the race for GOP presidential nominee. While he wasn’t the only one, he certainly ‘helped’ to push the political atmosphere towards one of extreme anti-science acceptance. Santorum was quite happy to point out on more than a few occasions that he believed in the conspiracy theory that global warming was a hoax long before it was popular required to do so. Santorum repeatedly echoed several of the many global warming denial myths that you can find debunkings to in posts on the right side of this page.

Coming into the GOP primaries, Romney was one of the ‘greenest’ candidates. He certainly wasn’t Kermit the frog, but he not that long ago supported cap and trade (note: cap and trade was actually originally a Republican idea and is a market-driven solution to our global warming crisis). He also supported government support for clean energy and other clean tech, such as solar, wind, and electric vehicles.

Unfortunately, nearly a complete lack of (correct) information on that side of the political isle combined with who-can-be-the-dumbest-presidential-nominee-ever contestants like Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich made global warming denial a requirement and “clean energy” a dirty thing to support (despite the fact that a large majority of the country supports clean energy and governmental global warming action).

So, the question now is whether or not Romney will swing back to good (for a Republican, that is) support for clean energy and an acceptance of the scientific consensus on global warming. Of course, he will swing back a bit as the race with Obama kicks into high gear, but how much? Some are very hopeful he would be a very green president (including a top donor and Environmental Defense Fund board member), some not so much.

If Big Oil’s decision on who to support is any indication of which way Romney will swing (at least relative to Obama), the answer is pretty clear — perhaps the top oil lobbyist in the U.S., B. Kent Burton, is now raising big money for Romney.

Santorum and the complete off-the-wall crazies are out, but damage has certainly been done, and with Obama’s record in support of clean energy, it looks like dirty energy interests are banking on Romney sticking with the anti-science stance Santorum and others stuck him with.

What do you think? Will Romney turn around on this critical issue (and if so, will he do so out of a sincere understanding of the threat global warming poses to human civilization) with Santorum out of the race? Or is he going to remain a global warming deniers and dirty energy lover?

Image: Romney photo source unknown; Santorum photo modified from photo by michaelrighi (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 license)

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