Jeb likens climate concerns to religious zeal (and not in a good way)

In a sharp contrast to his successor, former Florida governor Jeb Bush gave a speech in Texas in which he said he was skeptical that humans are causing global warming and compared people who want to limit climate change to religious zealots, the Associated Press reports.

"I don't think our policies should be based on emotion; they should be based on sound science," he said in a speech to businesspeople in Dallas. (If Bush had gone to Houston instead of Dallas, the folks at NASA could have showed him some of their sound science on global warming, such as this. Or this. Or this.)

Rather than reducing oil consumption for the sake of combating climate change, Bush said the United States should focus on "energy security" -- reducing dependence on oil imported from hostile or politically unstable countries by encouraging alternative fuels.

Although the AP story doesn't mention it, Bush is a major advocate of ethanol, having signed on as co-chairman of the Interamerican Ethanol Commission in December 2006. His co-chairs: the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, Luis Moreno, and former Brazilian Agriculture Minister Roberto Rodrigues.

While in office, Bush helped to launch the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, chaired by St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker, a fellow Republican. The commissioners all agreed that the state's top priority should be tackling global warming and recommended that the state reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks and power plants. As a result, in his first months in office Bush's successor, Gov. Charlie Crist, leaped on the climate change issue and made it his own.

To read the full AP story, click here. To read about Bush's ethanol connection, click here. To read about the origin of Gov. Crist's climate crusade, click here.

--Craig Pittman