Those weren’t the exact words Texas Gov. Rick Perry used, but that was the gist of his comments in New Hampshire this morning. Already an acknowledged evolution denier, Gov. Perry made clear that he is also an anti-science fanatic on the problem of climate change. A Union Leader editor tweeted the following quote from Gov. Perry:
Perry “I do believe the issue of global warming has been politicized”
The same editor, Drew Cline, followed up with another tweet about the governor campaigning in New Hampshire:
Perry says “a substantial number of scientists has manipulated data to keep the money rolling in.”
A New Hampshire public radio reporter also tweeted about the new presidential candidate’s science denial:
#perry on climate change: “Scientists are “coming forward daily” to disavow a “theory that remains unproven.”
It’s worth noting that at least two of the people Gov. Perry has appointed to chair the State Board of Education in Texas are also climate-change deniers. Just after presiding over the revision of controversial new science curriculum standards that called the existence of climate change into question in 2009, then-Chairman Don McLeroy, R-College Station, told a reporter:
“Conservatives like me think the evidence (for human contributions to global warming) is a bunch of hooey.”
After the Texas Senate refused to confirm Gov. Perry’s renomination of McLeroy to another term as chair, Gov. Perry appointed Gail Lowe, R-Lampasas, in 2009. Lowe was already on the record as denying the science of climate change, telling a reporter in 2008 that she would vote to reject any textbook that discussed human actions that add to the problem of global warming:
“That’s another textbook that will be turned down by me — political agenda and not solid objective science.”
