Pat Robertson, Global Warming “Convert”
As a 700 Club host and founder of both the Christian Broadcasting Group and the Christian Coalition of America, Pat Robertson has made many divisive and headline grabbing statements. One he made last week may be dividing a different camp, however. (Hat tip: Real Reason)
I tell you stay in doors ladies and gentleman. Stay cool. Get fans or whatever. And the poor, they need emergency fans and ice to cool down — the number of people dead. I have not been one who believed in the global warming. But I tell you, they are making a convert out of me as these blistering summers. They have broken heat records in a number of cities already this year and broken all-time records and it is getting hotter and the ice caps are melting and there is a build up of carbon dioxide in the air. We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels. If we are contributing to the destruction of the planet we need to do manage about it.
Robertson is not especially noted for his scientific prowess, and we join others cautioning against in uncritically conflating heat waves and climate change. But Robertson’s tone and candor is a quick and welcome change for his popular 700 Club. Just last month, Media Matters reported on the show’s uncritical airing of the views of climate skeptics.
On the July 10 edition of … the 700 Club, Media Research Center president L. Brent Bozell III misleadingly suggested that there is no scientific consensus on the existence of global warming. Asserting that the media “can’t decide” on the science because “[o]ne moment they’re declaring … there’s global warming. The next moment … there’s global cooling,” Bozell revived a favorite argument of some global warming skeptics that, in the 1970s, scientists were warning that the earth was cooling at an alarming rate. In fact, the magnitude of the consensus among scientists that global warming exists and that human activity is a contributing factor dwarfs the pool of scientists 30 years earlier who warned that the earth was cooling.
Robertson’s statements have also put him at odds with fellow evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, who has gone out of his way to instill doubt in the public’s understanding of climate science.