Romney: Scientists can figure out global warming 50 years from now

When asked about his views on climate change at a campaign event, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney replied that the earth might be getting warmer, but that his top priority as president would be to increase energy production in the United States.

"I'm not a scientist, so I don't know the answer to these things," he told the questioner. "I think the earth is getting warmer. May be wrong. I think we probably contribute something to it, but I don't know if we contribute a little or a lot. And therefore, when I come to the policies I'd put in place, I do not support cap and trade policies, which raise the cost of energy."

"Scientists will figure that out ten, twenty, fifty years from now," he concluded. "But the right policy for me is, use our domestic sources of energy -- including our renewables, and our gas, and our coal, and our nuclear, and our oil -- and that's the right course for America."

In sharp contrast with Romney's suggestion that the question of climate change can be deferred for another fifty years, however, the majority of scientists have already concluded that man-made global warming is real, has already contributed to an unprecedented number of climate disasters, and will be irreversible unless significant changes are made within the next decade.

This video is from CNN, broadcast Dec. 9, 2011.