Barton:<\/strong> “I would point out that if you\u2019re a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn\u2019t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That’s correct. There is no evidence that the flood was caused by hydrocarbon energy exploitation. However, that does not mean that it wasn’t caused by mankind in some other manner. Barton may be listening to too much of Glenn Beck.<\/p>\n Let’s take a look at the factual basis for the argument that Barton is propounding. The bible’s account of Noah asserts that sometime after he was 600 hundred years old he was singled out by God as the only righteous man of his generation and was instructed to build an ark that would preserve the continued existence of every species of life on the planet. So Barton’s opposition to the findings of 1,000’s of atmospheric scientific studies begins with an angry deity, a 600 year-old man, and a magical boat.<\/p>\n More to the point, according to the bible, God was motivated to destroy the vast majority of Earth’s lifeforms due to the prevailing “wickedness of man.”<\/em> Therefore, it was indeed the behavior of humans that resulted in the climate change that occurred in Noah’s day. That would set the precedent for faithful Christians to concede that humans are responsible for climate change in the present, just as they were in the past. And it could even be the result of the same divine umbrage at our species, because it would be difficult to argue that there isn’t an abundance of wickedness here on Earth today. And for all we know, that wickedness, from God’s perspective, might be related to our defiling of the planet for which he commanded us to be “good stewards.”<\/em><\/p>\n In addition to Barton’s rejection of science, his ideological compatriot, Rush Limbaugh, also entered the fray in defense of his science adviser, a thirteen year old kid who called his radio program. Limbaugh proclaimed that “much of science today”<\/em> is “just a branch of the Democrat Party.”<\/em><\/p>\n Rush:<\/strong> “The global warming scientists are just Democrats, folks. They all have a political preference. They’re all part of an agenda … at the end of the story they have to put in this snarky comment that basically implies this kid Alex doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Science responded by noting that Limbaugh is a yet unproven hypothesis who, if he exists, also has an agenda and a political preference. Science further states that they will put up their rigorous, peer-reviewed studies against any ill-informed opinions from children and drug-abusing talk radio hosts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas (where else?) spoke at a hearing on the Keystone XL pipeline and revealed his divine justification for denying the science behind climate change. Barton’s source for his reasoning was the biblical story of Noah and the great flood: Barton: “I would point out that if you\u2019re a believer in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[473,1],"tags":[44,71],"class_list":["post-9462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-general","tag-glenn-beck","tag-rush-limbaugh"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-2sC","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1557,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1557","url_meta":{"origin":9462,"position":0},"title":"The Right’s Top 25 Journalists?","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/11\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Tunku Varadarajan, national affairs correspondent for The Daily Beast, has compiled a list of what he and 50 academics, politicians, and journalists, consider to be the top 25 right-wing journalists in America. The most enlightening thing we learn from this list has nothing to do with the ranking of wingnuts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10248,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=10248","url_meta":{"origin":9462,"position":1},"title":"Limbaugh And Hannity Getting Heaved From 40+ Radio Stations: Glenn Beck Nervous","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/29\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Be Sure To \u201cLIKE\u201d News Corpse On Facebook Earlier this year a fierce feud broke out between Rush Limbaugh and one of his radio distributors, Cumulus Media. The Cumulus CEO, Lew Dickey, went public with his observation that Limbaugh's vulgar misogyny and hate speech was sending advertisers fleeing. Dickey told\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1633,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1633","url_meta":{"origin":9462,"position":2},"title":"Barack Obama’s Message To Glenn Beck And Rush Limbaugh Fans","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/1\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"President Obama gave the commencement speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor today. In the course of his remarks he addressed \"today's poisonous political climate\" and his prescription for \"a vibrant and thriving news business.\" It was a refreshing alternative to the adversarial ravings that dominate contemporary media.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1492,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1492","url_meta":{"origin":9462,"position":3},"title":"Glenn Beck Has Gone Full Blown Televangelist","author":"Mark NC","date":"12\/15\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"On today's program, Glenn Beck pulled aside the veil to reveal his true face. It is a face whose features were familiar from a long beheld visible silhouette. But now it was nakedly transparent. He has finally assumed his place as the broadcast bishop, the cable cleric, the television vicar.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Environment","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=473"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27863,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=27863","url_meta":{"origin":9462,"position":4},"title":"Breaking News: Gay Marriage Caused 9\/11, Global Warming, Ebola, And Benghazi","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/1\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The religiously inspired opponents of marriage equality have blamed society's gradual acceptance of more expansive civil liberties as the trigger for innumerable catastrophes and natural disasters. The range of horrors that they claim are the result of granting more freedom to Americans to live their lives as they chose run\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Environment"","block_context":{"text":"Environment","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=473"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gay Marriage Fire","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/gay-marriage-fire.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/gay-marriage-fire.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/gay-marriage-fire.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1654,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1654","url_meta":{"origin":9462,"position":5},"title":"State Of Shock: An Artist Examines The Hatred In Media And Politics","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/24\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Political commentators like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have been stretching the limits of civility for years. They compare their ideological adversaries to Nazis and Stalinists and assert that they are deliberately trying to destroy America and all that is good in the world. They openly hope for the nation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art\/Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Art\/Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=9"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9462"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9465,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9462\/revisions\/9465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Glenn](\"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/Pix\/Humor\/becks-ark.jpg\")
<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n