CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Potential presidential candidate Haley Barbour appears to be staking out a moderate position on global warming than some of his possible rivals, saying at an event in eastern Iowa on Friday that the country should “proceed in national policy as if global warming is actually happening.”
Barbour, who has consistently opposed regulation of the energy industry, made the comments in response to a question from an Iowa voter who asked the Mississippi governor whether he thought global warming was real.
“I think the prudent thing for us, when you consider the potential risk, the prudent thing is to proceed as if global warming is an issue,” Barbour said at a luncheon organized by a local Republican group, the Linn Eagles, “but we don’t have to destroy the American economy for no positive results to do that.”
The chattering classes continue to carp about the political genius that is Haley Barbour, but from this pundit’s armchair, the Mississippi governor appears to be too smart by half. Anyone with an iota of political horse sense would be able to deduce that an election cycle in which a) the GOP base is really, really fired up and b) swing voters are really, really concerned about the economy, jobs, the deficit, and an overall decline in their standard of living is simply not an election cycle where “doing something about global warming” is a viable position for a Republican presidential hopeful. That’s because it involves more government action, and thus more debt, more taxes and regulations, and thus fewer jobs, and would probably lead to higher energy prices, thus yielding an even lower standard of living for the middle class. In fact, the coming election cycle will probably be the first one in a long time with conservatives and moderates on the same side of the “green” debate, which is why it would be incredibly tone deaf for a Republican presidential candidate to use this issue in order to “Sister Souljah” the base.
It seems to me that either Gov. Barbour has a case of Beltway-itis, which afflicts a lot of establishment Republicans, who spend so much time in Northwest DC and Northern Virginia that they begin to believe that the entire country shares the values of the silk stocking set, or that the governor is still living in a pre-Twitter world, where every word that every politician utters does not make its way around the world at lightning speed. Perhaps the governor thought that he could give a “green” speech to a “green” audience without anyone noticing. He couldn’t. Gov. Barbour was already on a short leash given his lobbyist past and his Deep South cultural cues, which would tarnish him with the sins of his region as he ran against the first Black American president. This gaffe just may be strike three.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
Hmm…Global Warming? YES PLEASE! At least I wouldn’t have hurt my tailbone slipping on the ICE that is still outside at the end of March.
I agree, if you held any Barbour stock, SELL! SELL! SELL!
There are ways a candidate can position himself as friendly to the environment without falling hook, line, and sinker, for the “Green” cult.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:50 pm
Haley did such a good job heading up the RGA that the thought of him running for President is kind of painful. I don’t see him getting any traction now or during the rest of the campaign.
This run will be a pitiful epitaph that ends his career.
March 25th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
I don’t think Barbour said anything that didn’t make sense, but we don’t know how many grassroots GOP voters are making sense this election cycle…
March 25th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
I always knew he’s a “slickster”,chomping,smoking big fat
cigars in the back rooms,back slapping other crooks,but
I didn’t know his so dumb.
Now,we all know,he’s dumber than Hog Boss.
Yeah,stick a fork in him!
March 25th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
Global warming sounds great. Where do we sign up for some?
We’ve had the most snow in over fifty years here. It’s supposed to be spring but we just got hit with six more inches of the white stuff and more on the way. And last year it snowed in May.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
It’s 8 degrees in Minneapolis right now, and we just got a foot of snow yesterday.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
From what I read in Scripture – the world will suffer from global warming – but it won’t be “man made” – unless you count their unwillingness to acknowledge God and repent.
Revelation 16:8-9 “And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.”
No amount of going green can prevent that.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Yawn.
Just like we were meant to stick a folk in Daniels three weeks ago re the unions? Or Mitt with HCR and Mike with Clemmons.
I’m a sceptic too but sometimes the world isn’t black and white.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
3.
Well, the problem is that even the most draconian global warming measures are predicted by the environmentalists themselves to be utterly ineffective.
Doing anything except investing in new technologies and waiting for them to blossom is an exercise in foot shooting. And I’d rather keep my feet whole. Especially if global warming is coming.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
This may indeed be very bad for Barbour, but I happen to think he’s got the right stance here. The science on man made global warming is extremely sound. I mean, the overwhelming body of scientific evidence supports AGW. The real question is, what is the most effective way to solve the problems associated with climate change? Technological development in a deregulated free market energy industry, coupled with a firm and fair enforcement of private property rights? Or a massive system of wealth redistribution, administrated by unaccountable, unmotivated, and uninformed government bureaucrats?
March 25th, 2011 at 11:21 pm
#5…..I hope you are just joking MarK
There are always swings in the weather patterns. What is of concern is that the average temperature keeps rising. What we don’t know is if this is also a long-term natural cycle, a natural cycle made worse by pollution, or a bad trend completely created by pollution.
What we do know is that nothing good comes from polluting.
What the GOP should be doing is prompting cost-effective ways to prevent pollution and make a global business out of it.
That is the best way to keep the eco-fruitloops from going extreme on us…
March 25th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Heck, if you all want some global warming, you can have ours. It is almost 90 degrees down here in Florida.
Really though, I don’t see what is the problem. Governor Barbour is saying we should be be prudent (not a word used often enough in politics) about our environment and the world we live in.
This seems like an attempt by the Governor to try and talk about environmentalism in a responsible, Republican way. I don’t think you have to be a Democrat to give a crap about the planet; after all, America’s greatest conservationist, Teddy Roosevelt, was a Republican.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Global warming,or now the con artists promoting it were
forced to change it to climate change is the biggest
rip off Ponzi scheme ever invented.
Climate changes do happen but it has nothing to do with
what men do or don’t do.
It’s a big lie and thousands of scientists say so.
Since collapse of Soviet Union the leftists had to find
another cause and make trillions of dollars in the process.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
“make” trillions of dollars in the process”.
I meant “STEAL”
March 25th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
This is kind of the sanity litmus test. Barbour failed.
March 26th, 2011 at 12:08 am
I don’t think this is a ‘stick a fork in him’ sort of statement — it’s very vague: “proceed as if it’s an issue” — what does that mean.
I prefer Daniels’ position which is (not an exact quote but close): “It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not — we can’t afford the proposed solutions.”
March 26th, 2011 at 12:49 am
Bob,
I like Daniels’s clarity on this issue better than Barbour’s, but I even more prefer Johnson’s position, which is: “It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not — the solution is still deregulation of the energy industry and enforcement of private property rights”.
March 26th, 2011 at 1:59 am
It’s curious that Palin is supposed to be the not so bright one yet Gingrich and Barbour have made the early gaffes. Haley may also have a major issue with regards to
his travel on a state plane. It appears he has made several very questionable flights to political events while he just happened to be on state business. What a coincidence.
Also the plane apparently is one that corporate bigwigs use for travel so he’s not slumming.
March 26th, 2011 at 2:59 am
“It’s curious that Palin is supposed to be the not so bright one yet Gingrich and Barbour have made the early gaffes.”
The problem is we expect so little from her that most of the time her “gaffes” are overlooked and overshadowed. Palin’s response to the AZ shooting was a “stick a fork in her” moment and her declining poll numbers since then provide evidence of that.
March 26th, 2011 at 7:53 am
Jerald.#11:“I hope you are just joking MarK.”
I am an engineer. When in engineering school, we used to deride what we termed “Finagle’s Fudge Factor”. That is defined as the quantity you added to, multiplied by, subtracted from, or divided by your actual results in order to get the numbers you wanted.
As engineers, we don’t have the luxury of publishing things that may or may not be right. People drive over our bridges everyday. They used our computers to run their businesses. They live beneath our dams. They drive their families in our cars at 60+ MPH on the freeways. So we have a natural tendency to go with what is real, what can be verified and proven, and dismiss that which is not. Because if we didn’t, lives would lost, property ruined, businesses destroyed.
As I look at the data published by the Global Warmists, I see very little that can be verified. Instead, I see fudge factors galore. You don’t like this set of data? That’s alright. We’ll simply apply this factor to it, and it comes out perfect. Where did that factor come from? Why out of thin air, of course. Since the theory is correct, the fudge factor obviously is real.
And the fact that they finagled the data and then destroyed the original is a HUGE red flag. Do you know that the creator of the famous hockey stick to this day has refused to release his raw data or even the algorithm he used to come up with it? The most famous global warming chart of all times cannot be verified or duplicated.
All these things leads one to an inescapable conclusion. The “data” and therefore the results these people provide cannot be trusted. They may full-heartedly believe it. They might even be right. But until I see some solid evidence that can be counted upon, I remain unconvinced.
March 26th, 2011 at 8:06 am
Barbour will raise a few truckloads of money and he’s from the South so he’s automatically relevant- a statement like this doesn’t change things. And as a Pawlenty supporter I’m not going to pretend to be outraged by someone straying mildly off the reservation on global warming. That said, Barbour will obviously not be a base candidate. Bachmann’s the only real prospect for that so far. If she fizzles, probably Pawlenty gets their grudging support, after they cast about desperately for a candidate to draft for a few months.
March 26th, 2011 at 8:24 am
Let me put it another way.
Would you want to drive your family over a bridge designed by engineers who use the same standards to arrive at their conclusions as the Global Warmists use to arrive at theirs?
March 26th, 2011 at 8:30 am
As to the point of this thread (does this fatally wound Barbour’s chances), I have to answer — probably not. This is just one a small blip.
As Heath related in #8, all the candidates are going to pronounced DOA multiple times between now and November 2012. Let’s not give into hype.
March 26th, 2011 at 8:38 am
Remember this: Ethanol is a supposed solution (in part) to global warming. Now, where was this statement made?
In all seriousness, I don’t think this will be much of a problem for him because, in part, his Southern cultural ques deflect certain moderate sounding positions. Everyone knows that good ‘ol boys don’t eat granola. Now, sure, some of the more rabid talk show and blogger types may go after him for this—but they would do so anyway, even if he talked like a blend of Friederich Hayek and Curtis LeMay, because he is an “Establishment Insider” and has a track record of accomplishment. Net result, I don’t think this changes much.
March 26th, 2011 at 11:06 am
The thing to remember is that Barbour is a minor candidate. Minor candidates don’t need this. The way Barbour does business is likely to come under more scrutiny if he becomes more of a factor. I don’t see how he gets past Huckabee or Palin. He could be the John Connally of of 2012.
Interesting poll also showed that the response to Palin’s response to the shootings was positive. The difference between that poll and some others like ABC/Washington Post
was that respondents actually had some knowledge of her response. The respondents in the other polls probably had no clue.
March 26th, 2011 at 11:27 am
#20…MarK….the “joking” comment was more in reference to using one cold winter as proof of anything……it is a fun way to heckle global warming folks though.
OK, you are an engineer, so we have common backgrounds and can talk. First of all, I take note of your mention of the “fudge factor” but you completely forgot to mention “dry labing.”
I will start with a disclaimer: As far as the phenomenon called “global warming” goes, real scientists (not the fudgers and dry labbers) recognize that something is happening globally to the weather patterns. But they cannot be sure of what it means.
Now I have an engineering and scientific background, so while I enjoyed your “empirical data only please” stance, you surely realize that comparing your engineering examples to predicting man’s impact on the globe now and into the future are like comparing apples to oranges.
First of all, before you build your bridge, you will be working with tons of empirical data accumulated over time dealing with steel types and strength, load failure points, thermal expansion, stress tests, etc., etc., which can be proven through testing in a short time span and can be plugged into very accurate and proven modelling programs based on past experience building thousands of bridges and analyzing how they hold up over time.
If, however, I ask you to state within one year when your new bridge will fail, you will be in a world of hurt. You will start asking questions like, is the bridge over saltwater? What are the average and sustained winds in the area? What is the predicted future traffic load? Was the steel really produced to spec? What corrosion prevention measures will be taken? Will those measures be kept up? At what frequency? Is periodic testing, such as ultrasound checks for metal fatigue and repairs allowed? Etc., etc.. and then you will start giving me a whole range of scenarios based on different conditions, but they will be nothing but guestimates because there are too many unknown factors and we are only talking about bridges, which have a lifetime of only decades to a few hundred years at best.
Now take something like global weather patterns for which the cycles run in the tens of thousand of years or longer, we have almost no empirical data and what partial data we have only covers a few decades and for very limited data maybe a couple of hundred years. The rest of the data we try to glean from historical records, tree rings, soil layers, etc.
On top of that, the industrial revolution is only about 250 years old and nothing like it has ever occurred on earth before, so we have no model for its impact on the planet. So I think you should be able to dig up some sympathy for the climatologists who are trying to do good scientific work. After all, they can’t just take a chuck of the weather pattern and have it stress tested like a truss…”Let’s try uping the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere until we break the Gulf Stream and send it off course and see what happens and during the test keep all the sensors placed throughout the undersea currents running and recording data…” You get the idea.
In short, as far as pollution goes, it is better to be safe than sorry. Possible global warming isn’t the only pollution related problem. I have no respect for the psuedo-scientists who have no interest in pursuing the truth for whatever reason, but I find this driven madness of the GOP grassroots to want to trash the planet with abandon to be grossly irresponsible and a losing platform for the Party…..It’s also a great way to ensure that we keep moonbat Liberals and witch docter scientists in charge of our environmental policy.
Besides, there are bucks to be made from truly green technologies so why can’t we have the United States be the leader in fighting pollution the practical way instead of giving the market to other countries? Killing two birds with one stone sounds like a conservative priciple to me…
March 26th, 2011 at 11:34 am
Never trust a politicized result, and that’s what led to the Global Warming “Consensus.” The late Michael Chrichton set out to write a novel about the horrors of global warming, along the lines of the horrors of bringing back Dinosaurs for our amusement in “Jurassic Park.” 3 years of research later he came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any “there” there.
The result was his novel “State of Fear,” a very different novel than the one he set out to write. This one was about the horrors of manipulating scientific data to achieve political ends….a far more frightening prospect than frying to death.
BTW, If you want to save yourselves from having to do 3 years of research to come to the conclusions Chrichton came to, read “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming.” You can read it in about a week without taking any time off work.
March 26th, 2011 at 11:45 am
#27…Dave…..I am not discussing the moonbat liberals and their environmental fiction.
I am talking about the polar ice caps and glaciers melting at an unpresidented rate. The average ocean temperatures steadily rising and killing off the coral reefs. Rising ocean levels from the melted ice and thermal expansion of seawater from higher average temperatures that are covering low elevation islands and coastal areas, etc., etc.
That stuff is not a fantasy…..what it means needs to be studied….and if we are going along on our merry way and find out when it’s too late that it was wholly or partly our fault….well I guess just stick a fork in us as you say…
March 26th, 2011 at 11:45 am
Jerald,
Weather fluctuates. That’s why the call it weather. Whether it’s currently fluctuating by getting warmer doesn’t translate to any kind of danger. Btw, it’s cooler now than it was 10 years ago in terms of global average temperatures, but let’s assume we were having this discussion 12 years ago, when it was indisputably warmer than it was ten years earlier. The question would be one of cause, because Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and even Pluto were getting warmer at the same time, and it would have been clear that it WASN’T due to greenhouse gases.
As far as that goes, it was a lot warmer on our planet during the Medieval Warm Period than it is now, and, there’s evidence that, temperature wise, things were better then than they are now. The evidence is that the optimal global temperature would be several degrees warmer than it is now, and even by the reckoning of the alarmists, it will take centuries to get there.
Unfortunately, it ISN’T HAPPENING.
March 26th, 2011 at 11:52 am
I really, really want Romney to come out and denounce Global Warming as a fraud. Not that there’s a need per se, but reality is reality and I like to see a politician living in it. This is a deal breaker for me, to hear a politician act like he’s considering the validity of the movement at this point. Solid conservative vibes do not emanate from that kind of craziness.
March 26th, 2011 at 11:53 am
I have never, EVER heard a decent explanation from these con people as to why they were teaching the second ice age when I was in elementary school. They had the teachers scaring the beejeebers out of us, saying we wouldn’t live past 25 years of age. Then silence. Now we are going to burn to death in a fiery death if we don’t start paying these SAME PEOPLE carbon tribute? Unacceptable.
March 26th, 2011 at 11:58 am
#29…Dave..Unfortunately, I’m too busy to make a good discussion of this, but I’m well away of the fluctuating weather patterns, that way I was teasing MarK for making some kind of conclusion based on this year’s cold winter.
However, there is good evidence that the fluctuations are happening at a faster rate than in the past as far as well can tell, there is also evidence that the past warm periods did not results in massive and rapid melting of the ice caps. It’s also been shown that you have to go way back in the history of the planet before you again come to an atmosphere with as much carbon dioxide in it as we have now.
It may be true that none of this is man-made (well except the CO2 output and other pollution, cutting down of the forests, etc. etc.) but the scientist can’t prove that either.
See where I am going…..nobody can say with any kind of certainty that we are or are not headed into global warming trouble.
So the smart thing to do would be to responsibly hedge our bets. The moonbat liberals aren’t going to do anything responsibly. So the GOP should be responsible and practical, fill the void and keep the moonbats at bay, and build a profitable industry out of creating a greener society at the same time.
I don’t understand what is so bad about that idea. I’m not talking about looney schemes like cap n’ trade, not using are natural energy resources, etc., etc., I just saying be practical and responsible and enjoy living in a better environment.
Then again, if we take care of the planet and avoid big pollution related problems…the GOP grassroots will probably round up all the people who prevented the problem and hang them because nothing bad happened…
March 26th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Liz…Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Just like we have liberals and grassroots people screaming that RomneyCare is ObamaCare while at the same time being too lazy to truly educate themselves about the issue, we have too many people who don’t remotely begin to understand the science who are lumping good research in with the moonbat witch doctor fake science and completely running the other direction.
That may provide an emotional uplift and is easier to do than the try to wrap one’s head around the issues…..but it really is counter productive…
March 26th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
IT’S SOMETIMES HOT AND SOMETIMES COLD. WE NEED TO RE-THINK THE WEATHER GIRL ON CHANNEL 12 NEWS.
March 26th, 2011 at 12:42 pm
Liz,
The idea of Global Freezing was based on several facts:
1. From the 1940′s to the 1970′s there was Global Cooling. This, btw, in a time of substantial greenhouse gas emissions from industry and rising numbers of cars, etc.
2. We are about 11,000 years into an interglacial period….those periods between ice ages that have been the main climate feature of the earth for hundreds of thousands of years. Typically, interglacials only last 10 to 15 thousand years, and we’re due to return to another Ice Age at just about any time.
3. This return could happen in a single winter….not gradually…..as a result of sunlight reflecting off of too much icepack, radiating too much heat away from the planet and allowing a second winter to thicken ice sheets even more.
Interestingly, greenhouse gas emissions, could, in theory, save us from this fate.
March 26th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Jerald,
If you’ve ever studied terraforming, you know that there are dozens of plans as to how we can terraform Venus….a planet, btw, far “warmer” than the earth. It’s about 900 degrees warmer.
The point is, if, in the next 200 or 300 years, we can make Venus Earthlike, we can certainly, in that timeframe, make the Earth Earthlike.
What we have to do is keep civilization going and maintain some level of continuing technological progress while continuing, or resuming, additions to our capital stock.
March 26th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
#36.. Dave….yeah, that’s an interesting topic. I still haven’t seen any good data (doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist) on how they would block the solar radiation, where they are going to get all the oxygen, if they can really get the atmosphere to stabilize, and of course, get that temperature down.
However, after spending most of my young years thinking about space and studying space technology, I’m suddenly finding in my old age that I would rather just stay on earth……which is maybe why I’m into global house cleaning.
By the way, that concept of the CO2 emissions preventing the next ice age is also an interesting topic. When I was younger, me and my pals would spend hours going over the pros and cons on stuff like that. Of course, we don’t know the answer…but it’s another piece of the puzzle…
March 26th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
#36…..You have to keep in mind the difference between technically possible and financially possible.
Preserving the environment is probably cheaper than trying to restore it…
March 26th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
I don’t think this is a big deal. He really isn’t saying anything.