Jeb Bush Upbraids Pope Francis On Climate Change, The Second Catholic Presidential Candidate To Do So
Pope's Climate Change Stance Upsets Another Catholic White House Candidate
Paul Vale— The Huffington Post UK
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NEW YORK -- Jeb Bush upbraided the Pope on Tuesday, the presidential candidate becoming the second Catholic running for office to recently bemoan his church.
The 62-year-old, who announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in Florida earlier this week, told a town hall meeting in the moderately conservative state of New Hampshire that he was a “little skeptical” of taking advice on climate change from the Vatican, while suggesting the Pope should stay out of the “political realm."
He said: "I hope I'm not like, going to get castigated for saying this in front of my priest back home but I don't get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope."
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Jeb Bush talks to reporters after speaking to voters at the Derry Opera House, Tuesday, June 16, 2015, in Derry, New Hampshire
"My attitude," Bush added, "is that I don't think that science is complete. I don't think so. The whole idea that... it's all over and anybody who disagrees is a caveman or something? I don't believe that." Bush's remarks follow a recent scolding by Rick Santorum, who likewise told the Pope to stay out of climate change and "leave the science to scientists."
Recent rumblings from the Vatican suggested the Pope’s forthcoming encyclical would declare climate change real and man-made in line with the world’s scientific consensus. A draft of the papal document was leaked in Italy on Monday, which indeed backed anthropomorphic climate change, as well as pointing a craggy papal finger at the world’s great economies for either causing the mess or dismissing the evidence to avoid cleaning it up.
Describing climate change as the Earth’s way of protesting "irresponsible use and abuse of the goods that God placed in her," the draft read: “We have grown up thinking that we were her owners and dominators, authorised to loot her. The violence that exists in the human heart, wounded by sin, is also manifest in the symptoms of illness that we see in the Earth, the water, the air and in living things."
Jeb, brother of George W. Bush, told the attendees on Tuesday: "The climate is changing, whether men are doing it or not."
This has become the now-stock line for Republicans, embarrassed to ignore the science yet unable to blame the corporations that donate handsomely to their campaigns.
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Pope Francis attends a meeting with the Roman Diocesans in St. Peter's Square on June 14, 2015 in Vatican City
Last month, Jeb berated scientists for doing science, saying: "It's this intellectual arrogance that now you can't even have a conversation about it... for the people to say the science is decided on, this is just really arrogant, to be honest with you."
Still, were he given keys to the White House, Bush promised to enact “policies of adaptation” to reduce the consequences of climate change nationally. Other Republican candidates peddle a less sympathetic line, with Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz steadfastly denying human agency in global warming.
Perhaps the only hope for the meaningful climate policy in the US rests with Senator Lindsey Graham, who has promised to tackle climate change in a “business friendly way.” As such, he has absolutely no chance of winning.
The impacts of climate warming in Alaska are already occurring, experts have warned. Over the past 50 years, temperatures across Alaska increased by an average of 3.4°F. Winter warming was even greater, rising by an average of 6.3°F jeopardising its famous glaciers and frozen tundra.
Venice(02 of09)
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The most fragile of Italian cities has been sinking for centuries. Long famous for being the city that is partially under water, sea level rise associated with global warming would have an enormous impact on Venice and the surrounding region. The Italian government has begun constructing steel gates at the entrances to the Venetian lagoon, designed to block tidal surges from flooding the city. However, these barriers may not be enough to cope with global warming.
Antarctica (03 of09)
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The West Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest warming areas on Earth, with only some areas of the Arctic Circle experiencing faster rising temperatures. Over the past 50 years, temperatures in parts of the continent have jumped between 5 and 6 degrees F— a rate five times faster than the global average.A 2008 report commissioned by WWF warned that if global temperatures rise 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial averages, sea ice in the Southern Ocean could shrink by 10 to 15 percent.
The Great Barrier Reef(04 of09)
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The rapid decline of the world's coral reefs appears to be accelerating, threatening to destroy huge swathes of marine life unless dramatic action is swiftly taken, leading ocean scientists have warned. About half of the world's coral reefs have already been destroyed over the past 30 years, as climate change warms the sea and rising carbon emissions make it more acidic.
The Himalayas(05 of09)
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The world's highest mountain range contains the planet's largest non-polar ice mass, with over 46,000 glaciers. The mammoth glaciers cross eight countries and are the source of drinking water, irrigation and hydroelectric power for roughly 1.5 billion people. And just like in Antarctica, the ice is melting.
The Maldives(06 of09)
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An expected 2°C rise in the world’s average temperatures in the next decades will impact island economies such as the Maldives with extreme weather patterns and rising sea levels.
The Alps(07 of09)
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Over the last century, global warming has caused all Alpine glaciers to recede. Scientists predict that most of the glaciers in the Alps could be gone by 2050. Global warming will also bring about changes in rain and snowfall patterns and an increase in the frequency of extreme meteorological events, such as floods and avalanches, experts have warned.
The Arctic(08 of09)
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The Arctic is ground zero for climate change, warming at a rate of almost twice the global average. The sea ice that is a critical component of Arctic marine ecosystems is projected to disappear in the summer within a generation.
Micronesia and Polynesia(09 of09)
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Called the "epicenter of the current global extinction," by Conservation International, this smattering of more than 4,000 South Pacific islands is at risk from both local human activity and global climate change.