The Earth’s climate is changing, but what humans have to do with it is not necessarily clear, according to Jeb Bush.
“Look, first of all, the climate is changing. I don’t think the science is clear what percentage is man-made and what percentage is natural. It’s convoluted. And for the people to say the science is decided on, this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you,” the former governor of Florida said at a campaign event in New Hampshire Tuesday night.
“It’s this intellectual arrogance that now you can’t even have a conversation about it. The climate is changing, and we need to adapt to that reality,” said Bush, who is expected to run for president but has yet to officially announce his candidacy.
Bush also pushed back at President Obama’s Wednesday assertion that climate change is a threat to U.S. national security, and instead called it a “small part of U.S. foreign policy.”
“If the president thinks this is the gravest threat to our national security, it seems like he would say, ‘let’s expand LNG (liquefied natural gas) as fast as we can to get it into the hands of higher carbon-intense economies like China and other places. Let’s figure out ways to use compressed natural gas for replacing importing diesel fuel, which has a higher carbon footprint,'” Bush said.
Overall, climate change is not the “highest priority” of the U.S., though it should definitely not be ignored, Bush said.
Bush is expected to launch his presidential campaign in the coming weeks. He leads a RealClearPolitics average of polls of all potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates.
(h/t Reuters)
