Rick Santorum: Scientists Warning About Climate Change Are ‘Driven By The Money’
For the first time in basically ever, the Sunday news shows devoted coverage to climate change, following a dire report from the federal government that sounded the alarm over the economic and physical damage global warming is currently ravaging on the country. While one show — Face the Nation — actually brought on a real-life scientist to talk about the issue, much of the discussion featured on the programs was driven by punditry.
Meaning we got a nice heaping share of factless propaganda, like what we witnessed from CNN political commentator and former Republican Senator Rick Santorum.
Like most Sundays, Santorum was a featured panelist on State of the Union, and during a segment on the climate report, the conservative talking head was given the first word on the subject. And he immediately applauded the Trump administration for releasing the long-awaited report on Black Friday when most people would be preoccupied with the holidays and shopping.
“Good for them,” Santorum cheerfully boasted, beaming a shit-eating grin.
“At least you’re transparent about it,” host Dana Bash responded.
Santorum went on to dismiss the report as being written by “people in the bureaucracy” and “not Trump appointees” before stating that scientists were just warning about climate change to get that sweet moolah from BIG CLIMATE.
“The point that Donald Trump made is true which is, look, if there was no climate change we would have a lot of scientists looking for work,” Santorum declared. “The reality is that a lot of these scientists are driven by the money that they receive.”
He continued, “Of course, they don’t receive money from corporations and Exxon and the like. Why? They’re not allowed to. Because it’s tainted but they can receive it from people who support their agenda and that’s what I believe is really going on here.”
After being confronted over the deadly California wildfires that have destroyed huge swaths of land, the former GOP presidential candidate parroted Trump’s rhetoric about California’s forestry policies and a need to rake the “floors of the forest” as being the root cause of the fires.
“Because they have bad forestry policies, left a lot of fuel on the floor of these forests to allow these fires to get out of control,” he said. Meanwhile, neither the Camp or Woolsey fires started out as forest fires and California only manages three percent of its forests, with the federal government responsible for more than half of the forests.
Santorum also claimed that there is no consensus among scientists over why the climate is changing and that there is a “lots of disagreement out there about what is causing this” before suggesting that scientists were engaging in a large-scale hoax.
“Again, no one questions whether the climate is changing. The climate always is changing,” he exclaimed. “The people who say we have to do something right now, 25 years ago, they said the same thing. Here we are, 25 years later –”
“And California is burning, liberal panelist Symone Sanders responded.
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
