Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher, where he was challenged on his views on climate change.
“I don’t think you think climate change is a real problem,” Maher said to Santorum after asking what he would do as president to address the issue.
“I’m not alone,” Santorum retorted. “There was a survey done of 1800 scientists and 57 percent said they don’t buy off on the idea that CO2 is the knob that’s turning the climate. There’s hundreds of reasons the climate’s changing.”
“Let’s talk about facts,” Santorum added. “And the fact is, lots of things cause climate change.”
Santorum criticized President Obama’s power plant regulations but did not offer an alternative solution. “If you look at what the President has proposed, an 80 percent reduction in emissions and the consequence of that to folks that I’m running my campaign on, which are folks that are blue collar Americans who are losing jobs to China, losing jobs to Mexico.”
“There are twice as many jobs in solar as there are in coal now,” Maher said. “You’re living in the past.”
The two discussed Pope Francis and his recent encyclical on climate change, the first such papal writing to be devoted to ecology and the environment.
“The Pope made a very strong statement in support of…climate change,” Maher said. “Shouldn’t you have the humility to say ‘well if the Pope thinks climate change is a problem then maybe I should’?”
“If you look at all the things the Pope said… he put it in the context of trying to reach out to people who may not agree with him on a whole lot of other issues in order to try to open up some doors and open up a conversation.” Santorum said. “So I think he’s trying to do something to break down some barriers.” Santorum, a practicing Catholic, criticized the Pope earlier this summer, saying he should leave the science to the scientists.