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Brad Johnson, Think Progress
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/08/22/301326/rick-perry-is-trying-to-make-climate-denial-a-faith-based-issue/
Climate science denial is one of the strongest anti-scientific currents running through today’s Republican Party. American conservatives, who tend to be most skeptical of the scientific consensus on greenhouse pollution, generally hold other politically relevant anti-science views, such as support for creationism and opposition to stem-cell research. As global warming touches all of our lives, people are having to reconcile the reality of a polluted world with their personal moral views.
Presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) is presenting his denial of climate science as rooted in his same faith that evolution is a hoax. Perry’s response to the greenhouse-powered drought in Texas has been to issue an official prayer for rain, while spurning man’s responsibility. On the campaign trail, he portrays the climate science as a “secular carbon cult” working against his infallible faith.
However, climate science denial has a very different provenance from other conservative anti-scientific attitudes. The facts of climate science challenge the business model of the fossil fuel industry, whereas the facts of evolution and the like challenge religious fundamentalism. The oil industry and evangelicals form two pillars of American conservatism (see the work of Allen Lichtman and Kevin Phillips), but their networks and influence are not the same. Climate denial has traditionally been spread not through conservative churches but through the secular, oil-funded media networks — the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh.
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