Rick Santorum, no doubt feeling left behind by all the money flowing to Jeb Bush and the adoration gushing to Ted Cruz, attempted to assert his relevance this weekend. Kudos that he did so without journeying to England and saying something stupid or getting caught in a scandal of some sort. All he did was mix and mash religion, science, and surface geophysics into a fine,
tasteless paste:
Santorum, who uses his religion to justify policies such as discriminating against gay people and outlawing abortion in all circumstances, accused President Barack Obama of being motivated by the so-called religion of environmentalism. “[Obama] is against fossil fuels, for his own, in my mind, quasi-religious reasons, which is not a rationale," Santorum said. "If someone would go forward and put forth a religious idea as to how we should regulate the environment, and it was based on a Christian or other types of religious (ideas), they would be condemned up and down."
[...]
The climate-as-a-religion accusation is hardly a new invention. It continues to cycle in and out of political rhetoric. The late sci-fi writer Michael Crichton (Senator James Inhofe’s favorite climate change expert) .. He declared that “one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism.”
First of all, if the usual suspects think or like to pretend Obama hates fossil fuels when gas is at two bucks a gallon, just imagine the nonstop untreated river of AM radio and Fox News sewage that would be headed his way if and when prices spike.
As far as Santorum's vague, hazy point: those of us concerned about the changing climate are all for the religious right finding a holy framework to oppose human-induced climate change. They seem quite gifted when it comes to blaming all manner of ills on human behavior anyway. So that one shouldn't be too hard for them to do, especially since there's some ammo in the Bible about man taking care of God's creation. There's even a radical liberal hippiefied guy in some parts of the Bible who isn't real big on tax cuts or deregulation of toxic industries, but he had a lot to say about resolving income inequality and providing health care for the masses at the expense of the wealthy. If only they will discover this divine directive before large parts of the world become hell on Earth.