Romney: Climate change maybe not so man-made

Mitt Romney offered what Reuters described as a "tweaked" position on climate change during a New Hampshire town hall tonight, offering up a comment on the topic that hews a bit more to the conservative perspective on the topic:

He was asked about global warming at a town hall meeting in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and said he believed the world is getting hotter and humans contribute in some way to the change.



"Do I think the world's getting hotter? Yeah, I don't know that but I think that it is," he said. "I don't know if it's mostly caused by humans.

Advertisement "What I'm not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don't know the answer to."

In June, a day after declaring his candidacy, he said this when asked about global warming:

“I don’t speak for the scientific community, of course,’’ Romney said. “But I believe the world’s getting warmer. I can’t prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that … so I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing.’’

Romney backers could argue it's a change in emphasis of essentially the same point, and in both cases he said he's against cap-and-trade while favoring a change in the nation's energy sources.

But that he made the comment on the heels of Rick Perry, who's opened up a lead in two polls, questioning the data behind climate change won't go unnoticed.

UPDATE: As I said, Romney backers could argue he made basically the same point, and a Romney aide is now in the Reuters story saying he didn't change his position. The word "tweaked" was also removed.

This article tagged under: Mitt Romney