Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has a simple message on global warming: capitalism has done more to help the climate than the “progressive model.”
“The United States has actually been one of the places as it relates to carbon emissions where there have been the best gains because of the explosion of American innovation in creating huge increases in natural gas production and consumption that has lowered carbon emissions,” Bush said in an interview with The Daily Signal.
“The capitalist system has actually done more than the command and control progressive model,” Bush said.
Bush has come under fire by environmentalists and left-wing groups for “denying” the “science” behind global warming, but then again, so has every other Republican presidential candidate this election cycle.
In the interview, Bush criticized the “hard-core left” for politicizing the global warming debate to the point where anyone who disagrees with activists is labeled things like anti-science.
“The problem is climate change has been co-opted by the hard-core left and if you don’t march to their beat perfectly then you’re a denier,” Bush said.
As for what Bush thinks about mankind’s contribution to global warming, the former Florida governor acknowledged the climate is changing, but added that it’s not clear what percentage (if any) is being driven by human activity.
“The climate is changing. I don’t think anybody can argue that it’s not. I don’t think anybody truly knows what percentage of this is man-made and which percentage is just the natural evolution of what happens over time on this planet,” Bush said.
“I think we have a responsibility to adapt to what the possibilities are without destroying our economy, without hollowing out our industrial core,” he added. “There are things that we can do that are commonsensical about this.”
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