Analysis of Jeb Bush's climate statements

See the candidate’s statements annotated by scientists

Guest comments:

William Anderegg: Acknowledges some of the science, some of the time.

Twila Moon: This candidate correctly acknowledges that climate change is largely human-caused in one case, but later statements are inaccurate or misleading.

Reviewers’ feedback:

Victor Venema: A 20 because it started so nice: “The climate is changing”. But then he contradicted this again and wrongly claimed that the climate may not be warming. A zero would also be defensible.

David Battisti: The candidate is either unfamiliar with the science, or purposely misrepresenting it.

Michael Mann: Mostly concedes the scientific evidence but downplays it by arguing that human activity is only a “contributor” to climate change when in fact it is the dominant factor.

Ryan Sriver: The candidate’s views are clearly articulated and reflect much of the current science.

Kevin Trenberth: Does not understand science, or that it is a global problem.

Emmanuel Vincent: The candidate does not reject the science altogether but does not seem to grasp the scale of the issue.

See the analysis for other candidates

Note on the statistical significance of the rating:

The average of the scientists’ ratings is 38 with a 99% confidence interval level of 24-53, a “Low” to “Neutral”. The AP rating for this candidate is significantly different with 64 – “Neutral” to “High”. We attribute this difference to the fact that we added two statements to the AP selection, including the quote, “It may be only partially man-made. It may not be warming by the way. The last six years we’ve actually had mean temperatures that are cooler.”

These quotes that reveal a weak understanding of climate change from the candidate likely resulted in scientists issuing a lower rating in our case.