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Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. (Courtesy of Flickr user gage Skidmore) Ad Policy

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a senior member of the House Science Committee, used a portion of his time at a town hall this week to launch into a rant about global warming, which he described as a plot by liberals to “create global government to control our lives.”

The congressman prefaced his remarks by noting that he wanted to respond to comments from Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who said recently that ongoing wildfires in Southern California have been exacerbated by a dry season that is the result of climate change. Rohrabacher, speaking Thursday afternoon before the Newport Mesa Tea Party, then launched into a discussion about how the science of global warming has been promulgated by a cabal of scientists, liberal politicians and United Nation “global government” types. These forces, who would like to usurp American liberty, could even be from Nigeria, he warned (partial transcript below, emphasis added):

ROHRABACHER: Just so you know, global warming is a total fraud and it is being designed by—what you’ve got is you’ve got liberals who get elected at the local level want state government to do the work and let them make the decisions. Then, at the state level, they want the federal government to do it. And at the federal government, they want to create global government to control all of our lives. That’s what the game plan is. It’s step by step by step, more and bigger control over our lives by higher levels of government. And global warming is that strategy in spades.… Our freedom to make our choices on transportation and everything else? No, that’s gotta be done by a government official who, by the way, probably comes from Nigeria because he’s a UN government official, not a US government official.

Watch the video here:





Rohrabacher also argued that government-funded scientists have received “so much money” for research that “they have used it to intimidate people who disagree with their attempt to frighten all of us into changing our lives and giving up our freedoms to make choices.” The sinister role of scientists, he claimed, is akin to the military industrial complex described by President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell address. The conspiracy to destroy freedom is apparently very vast.

Rohrabacher has never been shy about expressing his fringe beliefs about climate change. In the past, he’s suggested that global warming has been caused by everything from dinosaur flatulence to rainforests—pretty much everything except the fossil fuel industries that provide Rohrabacher with campaign donations.

Rohrabacher is one of many lawmakers who, despite living in a state reeling from climate disasters, denies the basic science of anthropogenic global warming. Earlier this week, Representative Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told ThinkProgress’s Scott Keyes that he doubts that the climate is changing. As Keyes reported, Mullin’s state has suffered from problems that have grown worse from climate change, from “massive tornadoes to widespread droughts, record-breaking heat to severe winter storms.”

Barack Obama's proposal to slow the pace of climate change.