Neurosurgeon, Not Meteorologist
- Ceres
- Oct 19, 2015
- 2 min read
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson gave a rousing speech in Baltimore when asked about his views on climate change. “Is there climate change? Of course there’s climate change,” he exclaimed, as if to pique the interest of liberal voters who are looking for candidates who at least acknowledge that global temperatures are shifting. Alas, Carson’s aware of it, but his actual views on the topic are shaky.
“There is no reason to turn it into a political issue,” Carson went on, and you can almost hear the collective sigh of voters who were hoping for some sanity in the 2016 Republican presidential roster. He dismisses the issue of global warming (rather than climate change, in that specific wording) as “irrelevant,” admitting that it’s all cyclical and shouldn’t be bothered with. In other words, Ben Carson is part of the crowd which doesn’t believe that climate change is caused by humans. Also according to PBS, Carson believes that it’s merely a distraction from better ways to protect the environment. But doesn’t climate change, in turn, affect everything having to do with the environment?
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Carson expressed his views in regards to a question on climate change by replying, “there is no overwhelming science that the things that are going on are man-caused and not naturally caused.” This is a callback to a prior comment about it being “irrelevant” - Ben Carson scarcely sees it as an issue worth bothering with in the first place. Given his status as a brain surgeon, many have expected Carson’s views on such scientific issues to be more... liberal? However, he has regarded climate change and global warming as if they were religions - mere belief systems that could be easily ignored. This has reduced his credibility with voters on both sides dramatically, though he rings in at 18.4%, right after Republican lead candidate Donald Trump, who rates at 24% - Carson has hit second place, and his views on environmental preservation certainly haven’t spurred that.
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