Quote of the Day: Michele Bachmann on Why We Don't Need To Save the Planet
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08.12.08

Our favorite Member of Congress from the State of Minnesota is now in the lead with the most quotes of the day of anyone on TreeHugger, with her latest complaint about Nancy Pelosi and the fight against climate change:
""[Pelosi] is committed to her global warming fanaticism to the point where she has said that she's just trying to save the planet. We all know that someone did that over 2,000 years ago, they saved the planet -- we didn't need Nancy Pelosi to do that." ::Think Progress
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Way to persecute someone for their beliefs!
Treehugger has leveled up!
+1 Hyprocrisy
+2 Self-aggrandizement
There is a group called Concerned Republicans for the Environment (or something), they must be truly embarrassed each time a member of the republican party speaks.
"One is the greater fool, the fool or the one who follows him" (change follows to votes)
There is nothing positive I can say about this woman, therefore:
"..."
...
If she didn't exist, treehuggers would have to invent here. Talk about all the crazy in the world rolled into one package. This woman makes the opposing point of view look so stupid you're almost thankful everytime she opens her mouth.
Finally someone with the stones to place fools in their place. Does any one really believe that the ice on this planet has always been there ? At one point this planet was too hot to support life as we know it. At one point this planet was too cold to support life as we know it. Where are we now, some where between boiling and freezing, sounds good to me.
It never ceases to amaze me the words that leave the mouths of elected officials. It's enough to make you lose faith in the political process. This is the kind of comment I expect from a mouthy uninformed teenager not someone elected to care for the affairs of the country. At the very least she could at least get her comment right. Assuming she's referring to Jesus, he saved human souls, not the planet. Biblically speaking,God left the care of that to us.
It's not really the planet that needs saving... it will still be here after we make it uninhabitable for us and for most life. Do you want to be a part of that process?
@odysseus1959
"some where between boiling and freezing, sounds good to me."
That's an even better quote then Bachmann's. You really wouldn't mind a mean temp of 211F? 33F?
I agree that the earth has gone through many changes. "Saving the planet" has nothing to do with saving the ball of rock orbiting in space. It means maintaining a the delicate environment conditions that allows our species to survive/thrive.
Or, did I just feed a troll?
JC is the answer, NOT!
No one is persecuting this woman for her beliefs, Canadaman.
We're ridiculing her for her arrogant ignorance.
There is a world of difference.
Ms. Bachmann is following in a grand tradition identified most famously by Upton Sinclair:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
Certainly her biggest donors are large corporate conglomerates who benefit in the short term from congress people opposed to action on Global Warming.
Conflating spiritual rescue with environmental action on global warming is disgusting. Were Jesus alive today, He would be appalled at the amount of poverty and exploitation in a world awash in riches. And given that lack of action on Global Warming will affect billions of the poorest on this earth the hardest, it's hard to see him not supporting meaningful action to prevent it.
@ CanadaManBear
Reporting the exact words someone says is not persecution.
i thought her statement was pretty funny, pelosi is a lost cause with a big mouth she just wants votes, i doubt she would buy carbon credits or recycles, probably has a carbon footprint the size of Bhutan
As a liberal Presbyterian, I'm frankly embarrassed for her.
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
- Mark Twain
I honestly can't imagine any religious leader in the world signing off on actions that will do as much damage to the world as global warming. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and Siddartha Guatama all had respect or reverence for the world around them. Noah might have gone along with it, but he was a drunkard, anyway.
Remember, it took tens of thousands of voters to elect such a person to Congress. There are probably many in her district who think much the same way as she does. Lots of people that need to be outvoted. Don't fail to go to the polls in November. DB
I'm not going to ridicule her for her beliefs.
I'm going to ask "Why don't you use the brains God gave you?" That's one of my dad's favourite sayings in response to me doing something astonishingly stupid.
Again, SHE IS SOOOOO HOT!
Again, that Lohan style of crazy, coupled with decent looks, just does it for me.
Now that I know she is a superstitious kind of crazy, I don't know what to do with myself. Wait, maybe I do. :P
That reminds me of this xkcd comic.
The US has to be the dumbest nation in the world. Jesus and climate change... COME ON!
Canadaman, how is that persecution? No one is attacking her religion. But if she believes that Jesus SAVED THE PLANET 2000 years ago, then she really needs to go back to sunday school.
Personally, I don't believe that whole story anyway and I think the bible granting man dominion over the planet is partly responsible for much of the destruction man has done to our environment. But it's ridiculous to say that we are destroying the planet. We are certainly making it harder for many organisms to survive, but the planet will be here for billions of years after we are gone.
As a citizen of Minnesota, I humbly apologize to all for the disgrace this woman perpetrates as a representative. Unfortunately, her district is north of my home in Minneapolis otherwise I would at least have had some part in preventing her initial election and in trying to vote her out after just one term.
: willy bio
That's the real tragedy here.
I think she's not a treehugger because then she would be perfect and that would just be unfair for other women.
She balances things by being ideologically hideous.
How on earth did that person manage to become a politician?
Oh it's the USA. Never mind.
In true American political fashion, the congresswoman takes the opportunity to proselytize her ridiculous cult of personality and mixes her apples with her oranges. It is far from clear the human species was in any kind of cultural trouble 2000 years ago to need saving or that any one person managed a positive cultural revolution. Major changes were rather negative from that point on until the rebirth of reason some 1400 years later. This newest attempt to "save the planet" is far more literal than the congresswoman reveals. It is not simply mankind whose future is threatened, it is the future of all life on the planet that's threatened unless something is done to halt the rape of worldwide environment by a single species.
The congresswoman's rant amounts to nothing more than poorly veiled criticism of science over hokey religion. The congresswoman and those who think as she does need to BE the change that's needed rather than pray in futility for deliverance.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions, it's just that her opinions don't seem to be based on facts. The phrase 'a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing' could be used to describe her speeches, only it'd be more a case of 'a very very little bit of knowledge is lethal'.
On another note, just think how much CO2 is needlessly emitted from her yapper....wow.
It's not the planet we need to save from climate changes... It's us.
Don't know about Joshua ben Joseph "saving the world" 2,000 years ago. (Supposing he really existed, and was born at the time of the census mentioned in scripture, he would have been twelve years old.) (And his birthday would be April 15th. There's a creepy thought.)
I do recall that 2,226 years ago, Hannibal Barca invaded Italy from the north by bringing elephants though the Alps, along a mountain pass which, today, is blocked by snow and ice year-round.
If you tried to take elephants there now you'd be arrested for cruelty: they'd die.
This is due to the fact, established by well-kept records of Roman harvests twice a year, and confirmed by tree-ring analysis, that the overall temperature in summer was nine degrees Centigrade warmer than it is today.
If any of the above gives offense to anyone's fanatical and fact-free dogma, I'm sorry.
For a given value of sorry.