MNN - Mother Nature Network

Now that Glenn Beck’s departure from his daily program at Fox News is official, we can begin looking back. Beck won’t officially be leaving until later in the year, so we'll still get a healthy dose of the always entertaining, mostly off-the-wall host. But when you know you're about to lose something, it’s always good to appreciate it. So without further ado, here are my favorite environmental quotes from Glenn Beck.

 

In 2009, Beck used Earth Day to review the doomsday predictions made by scientists in 1970 about the environment. It’s interesting to see the quotes Beck selected to undercut the credibility of environmental scientists. My favorite quote comes at the 1:48 mark when he says that much of the world outside the United States was predicted to be in famine by 2000. Beck simply says, “Glad we live here.” Funny stuff, Glenn.

 

 

Most people know Beck, but fewer people know the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and even fewer know Lord Christopher Monckton. But all three, especially Monckton, are climate change deniers. Having all three of them in Beck’s studio at the same time is a head-exploding scenario that took place in 2009. There’s something funny about Monckton standing above Beck at the now famous chalkboard. There’s something even funnier when Beck says at the end of the clip, “There was no Fox News at the time. That’s why you never saw that.”

 

 

Not as many people watched Beck when he was host of a show on CNN’s Headline News, but back in the good old days, Beck was still up to his old tricks. When interviewing Michael Brune of the Rainforest Action Network, Beck claimed that Brune was wrong to say that coal was a leading emitter of carbon emissions. “You’ve bought into it, it’s not the main cause. It is animal gasses that produce more CO2 gases than any of the cars we are driving.” The mild-mannered Brune had a priceless response. “Sounds like a bunch of bull to me, Glenn.”

 

 

In 2009, Beck had really come into his own. He was delivering great monologues with giant images of Earth behind him while speaking in hyperbolic tones with awesome theme music. It was conservative television gold; the same type of gold that G. Gordon Liddy slings during commercial breaks on Beck’s program. So when Beck decided to take on Al Gore with an “Inconvenient Segment,” as he called it, he brought on Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to talk about the “bunk” behind climate science. Towards the end of the segment, Beck decides to contribute to pollution more by exhaling loudly. It all comes down to science on Beck’s show. There’s no denying that.

 

 

As you can tell by this video, Beck was hitting on all cylinders by 2010. He had double big screen graphics going, and was literally shooting from the hip. When he pointed out that Texas didn’t have much federally owned land, he explained it was because Texans would fire upon any federal official who tried to take their land. For some reason he decided not to include facts about the annexation of Texas from when it was a sovereign nation in the 1800s. Then he showed that Connecticut and New Jersey have no federally owned land, which he explained was because they are “a rat hole.”

 

 

So there you have it. It will be sad to see Beck go. You may think he’s full of bunk — to steal one of his terms — or you may love him. But when his show is no longer part of every day life in America, there will be something missing. I’ll let you decide what that something is.