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We keep hearing that the tea parties are a secular movement dedicated to issues of spending and deficits. But their insistence that climate change is fake has to raise some eyebrows. Lots of explanations can account for this, of course. Dealing with climate change would cost money, after all. And it’s no accident that the group most heavily bankrolling the tea party movement, the Koch Brothers, are a pair of oil polluters themselves. Funny how those priorities just line up.
But I don’t think you can discount the importance that religion plays in all of this:
A rain of boos showered (Rep. Baron) Hill, including a hearty growl from Norman Dennison, a 50-year-old electrician and founder of the Corydon Tea Party.
“It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said. “He made this earth for us to utilize.” [...]
“This so-called climate science is just ridiculous,” said Kelly Khuri, founder of the Clark County Tea Party Patriots. “I think it’s all cyclical.”
“Carbon regulation, cap and trade, it’s all just a money-control avenue,” Ms. Khuri added. “Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too.”
I just added that last bit because I love the idea that it’s some kind of argument to say “Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was extreme, too.” Yeah, and they were right.
The entire tea party movement is based on a certain faith in the durability of arguments that have failed the country time and again. But that lines up very well with the faith that God will protect the planet no matter what the people do to it. To keep that faith, they’ll concoct any number of theories about hoaxes to explain away the science. This just entrenches the status quo. But it also keeps alive the notion that God will heal all troubles, and that the world was brought into perfection and cannot be tampered with, etc., etc.
I agree with Digby on this one – the malefactors of great wealth know exactly how to get the rubes on their side – invoke religion as a means to continue their raping of the Earth.
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Ok. I get it now. I see it clearly. I admit I was guilty too:
This climate change issue is really a tea party, neocon concern with you faded believers isn’t it? What about us fellow liberal climate change deniers? Are we out of the party now? Are we evil conservatives now? Nobody, even us is going to vote yes to taxes to make the weather colder. We trusted the government to run the climate too? Voters have the final consensus and if any of you believers still think there is enough voter support out or will ever be out there, YOU are the new denier.
This is our Iraq War, this our mistake of climate change.
So, what if it turns out that Climate Change is in fact true and you’re the one who is wrong.
Oops, my bad, probably won’t be considered too positively to your children and grandchildren.
This is one of those issues that it seem to be better to err on the side of caution but as always YMMV
What bible is that?
Genesis 1:26.
I don’t perceive “utilize” in there. It states “over the earth,” and in this context “earth” means “ground” (the writers of Genesis were unaware of planet earth as a ball in space), and this seem to preclude the extractive industries.
I do see “creepeth” which is certainly appropriate to the tea-partiers.
It seems to me that the TEA Party rubes take all their cues from Fox News. FN is the propaganda agent for the greediest, least patriotic, most irresponsible, large corporations. It routinely ridicules climate science.