Texas Congressman Cites Noah’s Ark As Evidence Against Climate Change

Republican congressman Joe Barton says the flood “certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

Joe Barton: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/republicanconference/4172337974/sizes/m/in/photostream/">republicanconference</a>/Flickr; Noah's Ark: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom1231/3563339788/sizes/l/in/photostream/">Marxchivist</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


This story first appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Texas Republican Joe Barton stands out even among his fellow conservative Republicans who have made it an article of faith to deny the existence of a human component to climate change.

On Wednesday, Barton cemented that reputation by citing the Old Testament to refute scientific evidence of man-made global warming, drawing on the story of Noah’s ark.

“I would point out that if you are a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the great flood was an example of climate change,” Barton told a congressional hearing on Wednesday in a video first shown on the BuzzFeed website. “That certainly wasn’t because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy.”

Barton was speaking at a House subcommittee hearing called by the Republican leadership to promote a bill that would allow Congress to fast-track a controversial pipeline that would pump crude from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries on the Texas coast.

The Texas congressman began by reiterating his support for the Keystone XL pipeline. He went on to say that he did not dispute the existence of climate change—just any connection to human activity, such as the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels.

“I would point out that people like me who support hydrocarbon development don’t deny that climate is changing,” he said. “I think you can have an honest difference of opinion of what’s causing that change without automatically being either all in, that’s all because of mankind, or it’s all just natural. I think there’s a divergence of evidence.”

Barton has made a reputation for his outspoken rejection of man-made climate change, and for his support for the oil industry.

In 2010, in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Barton became an object of ridicule for offering a profuse apology to the oil company

Barton told then-BP-chairman Tony Hayward he was ashamed that the White House had reached a deal requiring the company to set aside $20 billion for cleanup and restoration costs. “I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown,” Barton said at the time. “I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any citizen or corporation that does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that, again in my words, amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate