Robertson feels the heat

August 4, 2006

TV preacher [tag]Pat Robertson[/tag] is, oddly enough, finally feeling the heat. (TP has video)

Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat [tag]Robertson[/tag] said Thursday the wave of scorching temperatures across the United States has converted him into a believer in [tag]global warming[/tag].

“We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels,” Robertson said on his “700 Club” broadcast. “It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air.”

This week the heat index, the perceived temperature based on both air temperatures and humidity, reached 115 Fahrenheit in some regions of the East Coast. The 76-year-old Robertson told viewers that was “the most convincing evidence I’ve seen on global warming in a long time.”

What’s that old saying? Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Nevertheless, the division among evangelicals on this issue is growing increasingly stark. Robertson joins Rich Cizik and the National Association of Evangelicals on the side of those who acknowledge reality. On the other side we find James [tag]Dobson[/tag] and Jerry [tag]Falwell[/tag], both of whom reject the overwhelming evidence. (Falwell recently predicted that “our grandchildren will laugh at those who predicted global warming. We’ll be cooler then, if the Lord hasn’t returned.”)

It’s hard to imagine the issue causing a serious rift within the religious right movement — it’s not like they care as much about [tag]climate change[/tag] as they do, say, gay people — but the divisions are certainly worth watching.

“If the Lord hasn’t returned” is Falwell’s code for “do whatever you want, if the world heats up and the oceans boil, and the oceans rise and flood us, who cares? We’ll die and go to heaven!” I think that many of the religious moonbat politicians on the right feel the same way. “So what if Iraq and the middle east turn into a sea of fire and blood? Jesus is coming soon, so whatever. Now watch this drive.”

I’m no religious person, but I at least appreciate the consistency of religious leaders who ask people to consider taking care of “God’s earth”.

  • He must have gotten his electricity bill or maybe something works in that creaky head of his.

    Pat’s mind might not work so well on 911, predicting the future, anything regarding ethics in business/personal life/military service/politics, separation of church and state, or leg pressing 1000 pounds while drinking that shake of his, but it certainly knows the how hot it really is.

    Will the oil/gas/coal companies start Swift Boating Pat? Or just recycle what a lot of us have been saying about the ole coot?

  • Falwell: “We’ll be cooler then, if the Lord hasn’t returned.”

    So, if the Lord has returned, Falwell will be . . . hotter? Is ol’ Jer acknowledging that he’s going to Hell?

    😉

  • One of the first rules of the alternate reality is to insist on having things both ways:

    Falwell recently predicted that “our grandchildren will laugh at those who predicted global warming. We’ll be cooler then, if the Lord hasn’t returned.”

    It’s either
    A: Not a real problem.
    B: A serious situation, but God’s own will. So, no problem. To follow his logic, adding to global warming is doing the Lord’s work.

    Aside from the general silliness of superstition, I don’t have a problem with people who believe we are at the end of days. OTOH, religious leaders who want to hasten the destruction of earth and it’s people should be put in straight jackets and locked away in padded cells for the rest of their lives.

  • I want the Rapture to come and take away all these superstitious, vicious nuts, leaving a beautiful Earth for the rest of us to enjoy rationally.

  • Uff-da. What an idiot. Robertson’s grasp of science and the climate is quite unique. Does this mean that if we hit a cold snap in January that he will recant and announce a new ice age? I sense a cycle emerging here:
    January-March = Ice Age
    April-June = Everything is fine
    July-September = Global warming real as Noah’s Ark
    October – December = Everything is fine

    This man has the finest mind of any person wearing his underpants.

  • Leave it to someone live Pat Robertson to come to the right conclusion for the wrong reason.

    This heat wave has very little to do with global warming. If the record high in South Dakota were 110 instead of 112, we would all still be screaming about the heat.

    The evidence for global warming is all that boring stuff in peer reviewed articles about the levels of CO2, the reduction in the Gulf Stream, and the difference in temperature at various altitudes. The fact that Washington has a heat wave is just noise in the big picture.

    I thought Bob Herbert’s Op-Ed in the NY Times also jumped to conclusion based on insufficient evidence.

    We all need to do far more than we have been to reverse global warming. We need to have smaller houses, shorter commutes, use less AC, and generate more nuclear power while research goes on to create power more efficiently.

  • Robertson’s grasp of science and the climate is quite unique.

    I’ll throw in a grand overgeneralization: If you’re a member (or leader) of a religious sect in which personal revelation is a central part of your decision making, it’s completely unsurprising when a single personal experience causes you to make a 180 degree turn in your views.

  • Well … that explains why there are monkeys exiting my anus.

    (Okay. Sorry for the disturbing image.)

    To be serious, though — why every single religious leader doesn’t back environmentalism just stuns me. After all, they believe that this is God’s planet. Thus, there is a religious obligation to protect it and care for it the best we can. To do otherwise would be to disgrace God’s creation, would it not?

  • — it’s not like they care as much about climate change as they do, say, gay people — -CB

    I’m just suprised they haven’t blamed global warming on gay peole.

  • Unholy Moses.
    I think the really ‘out there’ religious people believe that everything is already destined to happen because that is god’s will.

    It’s a wonder these nuts even bother with doctors, why take antibiotics, it’s gods will and if his master plan included your kid dying of an infection, so be it.

    The sameis true of the planet. We take antibiotics because they kill bacteria and save lives. We do something about global warming because we have the knowledge and we can. Gods will has nothing to do with it.

  • ScottW–
    Don’t get me wrong — I’m not in any way religious, and am a much bigger fan of chaos theory and probability fields.

    The one thing I’ve never understood is the right’s “it’s God’s will” argument to … well, pretty much everything. My wife’s soon-to-be-former best friend has gotten that way, and we just don’t understand it.

    She (The Mrs.’ friend) says that if global warming it happening, then it’s God’s will. So I asked her one time if being gay is God’s will.

    As I figured, she said that was actually the devil’s work.

    So it basically boils down to:

    What they like = God’s will.
    What they don’t like = Satan’s work.

    I guess she likes going through life without using any kind of intellectual energy whatsoever.

  • It’s a wonder these nuts even bother with doctors, why take antibiotics, it’s gods will and if his master plan included your kid dying of an infection, so be it.
    Comment by ScottW

    Never mind antibiotics; what about taking Viagra?

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