Climate Change Supercharging Storms, Wildfires, Yet GOP Prez Candidate Disavows Former Position on Global Warming

WASHINGTON (July 2, 2012) –Wildfires in the West, fueled by record heat and extensive drought, have displaced tens of thousands of Americans. Deadly heat waves have blanketed tens of millions of Americans, and Friday’s massively destructive “derecho” storm has left millions without power. Scientists say that these events fit into the larger pattern of an unstable climate supercharged by global warming.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party and their new standard-bearer, Mitt Romney, have abdicated any responsibility to address the pollution that intensifies these types of extreme events. In fact, in a letter sent from then-Governor Romney to then-Governor of New York George Pataki in 2003, Governor Romney said “I concur that climate change is beginning to [have an] effect on our natural resources and now is the time to take action towards climate protection.”

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee and the co-author of the only climate change bill to pass a body of Congress, today issued the following statement commenting on these events and the need for Governor Romney and the rest of the GOP to work to reduce the carbon pollution harming our planet and its people:

“Hundreds of millions of American citizens have been afflicted by extreme weather events in the last two years, from wildfires to heat waves to floods. Mitt Romney is attempting to become the president for all of America’s citizens, yet he has no interest in protecting them from these events that have been supercharged by climate change.

“You can etch-a-sketch away a policy position, like how Governor Romney now opposes climate action when he used to be for it. But you can’t wave away a burned home, a sweltering city, or lives lost.

“It’s time to face the fact that the era of extreme climate change is arriving, and we have scant few years left to head off the worst effects of our increased pollution. Last year broke records for billion-dollar disasters in the United States, and 2012’s wildfires, heat waves and powerful storms are continuing this destructive trend. Our climate is changing for the worse, and we can see it every single day on the news and outside our front door.

“Americans have already been feeling the heat resulting from global warming and it's time for those who have resisted action to start feeling some political heat. “

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