AFA warns of climate change … wait … what?

Last updated on: October 16, 2011 at 10:59 pm by Fred Clark

AFA warns of climate change … wait … what? 2011-10-16T22:59:51-04:00 Fred Clark

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The American Family Association is a religious right organization that is viewed as a bastion of wild-eyed right-wing extremism even by other religious right organizations.

AFA is the home of, for example, Bryan Fischer, who seems almost to believe the outrageous and vile things he regularly says about gays, Muslims, Mormons, and the rest of the barbaric hordes he sees as threatening white straight Christian civilization. AFA’s website hosts blogs by Fischer, Chuck Norris and David Limbaugh, as well as other even more obscure far-right fringe commentators.

The general take on climate change from the AFA is that it’s some kind of elaborate conspiracy cooked up by scientists and other satan-worshipping atheists in order to bring in the one-world socialist tyranny of the Antichrist. AFA’s “Rightly Concerned” blog regularly features posts or videos denying the reality, or even the possibility, of climate change. See here and here and here and here for examples.

But then last month, inexplicably, an unsigned post on Rightly Concerned warned of “25 Signs That a Horrific Global Water Crisis Is Coming.”

Every single day, we are getting closer to a horrific global water crisis. This world was blessed with an awesome amount of fresh water, but because of our foolishness it is rapidly disappearing. Rivers, lakes and major underground aquifers all over the globe are drying up, and many of the fresh water sources that we still have available are so incredibly polluted that we simply cannot use them anymore. … As sources of fresh water all over the globe dry up, we are seeing drought conditions spread. We are starting to see massive “dust storms” in areas where we have never seem them before. Every single year, most of the major deserts around the world are getting bigger and the amount of usable agricultural land in most areas is becoming smaller. …

If dramatic changes are not made soon, in the years ahead water shortages are going to force large groups of people to move to new areas. As the global water crisis intensifies, there will be political conflicts and potentially even wars over water. We like to think of ourselves as being so “advanced”, but the reality is that we have not figured out how to live without water. When the water dries up in an area, most of the people are going to have to leave.

The post never suggests, even in the broadest terms, what sort of “dramatic changes” must be “made soon” to avert this crisis. Nor does the post ever get any clearer than the vague statements above — “because of our foolishness” — as to what might be causing this impending crisis.

The overall tone of the post is apocalyptic, alarmist and hyperventilating. But the dire scenario it lays out is possible — it’s possible due to the very same man-made climate change that AFA spends so much time denying as a satanic/socialist plot.

I’ve waited to comment on this strangely environmentalist post from AFA because I wanted to see if it would be removed. Nothing about this post is in any way compatible with the rest of AFA’s blogs and website. Or with their message or mission. (“Take a hard look at the data,” it urges.)

I also waited to comment on this because I was hoping I’d eventually figure out how to explain such a post on AFA’s site. I haven’t figured that out yet. I have no idea how this got there or why, or what, if anything, it’s presence there means.

The AFA denies the existence of climate change. The AFA believes that climate change is a lie — a conspiracy cooked up by liberals to take away freedom. And now the AFA is warning us of the dire consequences of climate change, “if dramatic changes are not made soon.”

Very strange.

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