Via NPR:

Perry is a strong opponent of the Environmental Protection Agency and he has expressed doubts that human activity is causing climate change.

JOHN BURNETT: Last month at a breakfast speech in Bedford, New Hampshire, when Rick Perry was asked about climate change, he gave this answer.

Governor RICK PERRY: There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated…

BURNETT: Perry said there are a substantial number of scientists who’ve manipulated the data so they would have dollars rolling into their projects. The governor went on to say that weekly, indeed daily, scientists are abandoning the theory of manmade global warming. Perry has long been a climate science doubter, a position that has endeared him to certain factions of the electorate. In his book, “Fed Up!” – a screed against the federal government – Perry calls global warming a contrived phony mess that’s falling apart under its own weight.

His statement in New Hampshire prompted blowback from Andrew Dessler, a prominent professor of atmospheric sciences at Perry’s alma mater, Texas A&M University. Dessler fired off an angry editorial that appeared in papers around the country.

ANDREW DESSLER: Well, if Governor Perry wants to talk to us, we can explain to him that the science of climate change is nearly 200 years old and at this point, we have a really well validated and sophisticated understanding of how the climate system works.

BURNETT: The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the science academy of every major industrialized nation believe that human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests, have contributed to increased concentrations of greenhouses gases in the atmosphere, which is heating the planet. Andrew Dessler says climate change is indisputably part of Texas’ current calamity.

DESSLER: And what that means is it makes the heat more extreme, it increases evaporation from the soil, that makes the drought more extreme. So we can be pretty confident that we’ve made the hellish summer that we just have gone through and we’re sort of still going through, we’ve made this worse than it would have been.

BURNETT: The Perry campaign did not respond to emails requesting clarification of his remarks on climate change. If Rick Perry disdains climate scientists, that’s nothing like his animosity toward the Environmental Protection Agency. Texas has more polluting industrial plants than any other state and Texas SUVs and coal-burning power plants spew out more carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, than any other state. The Perry administration has fought the regional EPA office in Dallas, which has been more aggressive under President Obama in trying to bring Texas polluters into line with federal regulations.

Continue reading this article at NPR.