Anyone who's ever surfed the AM radio airwaves has doubtless stumbled upon Rush Limbaugh, [2] who is arguably the most well-known right wing talk show host out there.
Over the years, he has been a convenient megaphone for the climate change denier crowd. He has interviewed [3] them, reinforced [4] their rhetoric, been suckered [5] by fake research, and even given his own interpretation of the facts (polar bears stranded on ice floes are "just playing [6]").
Predictably, one of his latest targets has been Al Gore.
Last year, Limbaugh got out the popcorn, switched on the TV, and took notes [7] on "Live Earth" for his audience, claiming that it was "an absolute disaster", and gloated that "[c]old weather and snow the week before kept people away from [the event in] Johannesburg,". Now, Limbaugh is repeating his "Live Earth was a failure" meme.
The proof (according to Limbaugh) is Al Gore's new bipartisan ad campaign [8]<!--more--> to promote awareness of global warming awareness and action we can take. Here's what Limbaugh has to say [9].
He hits all the classic climate change skeptic talking points, and then some:
How much publicity has Al Gore gotten on his global warming movement? He's gotten more publicity than he could buy. He's got that movie of his, which, of course, played, and it got an Academy Award, which called more attention to it, and it was in movies. In south Florida and in other parts of the country, schoolchildren were being forced to watch his movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Now, apparently, the American people are either too dumb to get his message on global warming from his award-winning science fiction thriller, An Inconvenient Truth, so now he's gotta go out and spend an additional $300 million to try to propagandize them."
The sole purpose of this campaign of manmade global warming is to convince more and more Americans and citizens of the world to turn over more and more of their liberty to Big Government and to allow Big Government to have more and more control over private sector businesses. It's nothing more than a disguised government expansion program, typical liberalism."
Everybody wants to matter; everybody wants their life to have meaning. So if they can be fooled into thinking that they are going to pay for their carbon footprint, that that will help clean up the planet and prevent this destructive climate change, they'll be more than happy to do it. Meanwhile, the people who they're paying will be laughing all the way to the bank because it's just one of the biggest scams to come down the pike. The one thing about this that to me is encouraging is that Gore's movie didn't do its job and all the free publicity and all the propaganda did not do its job, otherwise there would be no need for this $300 million campaign." [Bold emphasis mine.]
A note to Limbaugh: you may persist in hoisting the bullhorn of blather, but you're in a shrinking echo chamber. The traditional media is finally recognizing [10] the skeptics for what they are. And, there are folks on your side of the political fence who are teaming up [11] with Al Gore to act on climate change.
Before long, you'll be talking to yourself, Rush.
Editor's Note: this is the first post of our newest DeSmog writer, Page van der Linden. [12] Welcome to the team Page!