Congressman: Stop Worrying About Climate Change, Focus On Crimes Against Christians

First published on ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which was recently named one of Time magazine’s Top 25 blogs of 2010.

A Republican Congressman expressed anger at Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials on Wednesday for putting what he claimed was a misplaced priority on climate change.

Instead of studying the security risks posed by climate change — which include threats to infrastructure, disease spread, and increased refugees — Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC) said DHS should worry about other things, including “illegal aliens murdering beautiful innocent lives” and “folks who want to do great harm to Christians.”

“Your priorities are wrong at the Department of Homeland Security,” he said at a House Homeland Security subcommittee hearing:

I think that we’ve got threats of ISIS; we’ve got cartels shooting at helicopters on the border; we’ve got unaccompanied children coming into this country; we’ve got illegal aliens murdering beautiful innocent lives in San Francisco; we’ve got a woman who had her head blown off in Los Angeles by someone.

There are events after events going on around the world that are true threats to the United states, folks who want to do great harm to Christians, want to do great harm to others.

They want to come to this country and end the American way of life, and for whatever reason, we’re now spending out hard-earned dollars on climate science and the belief that this is one of the biggest threats to national security.

Duncan’s comments can be found here, at around the 48 minute mark of the archived webcast.

Duncan’s outrage over DHS studying climate risks may have to do with the fact that he doesn’t think climate change is real. He stated as much on Wednesday at the hearing, asking three high-level DHS officials to explain “why the earth was warmer during the medieval times” (a oft-used claim that is false). He also stated that “this notion that manmade climate change is happening is wrong.”

More than 56 percent of congressional Republicans deny or question the science behind human-caused climate change. By contrast, 97 percent of climate scientists actively publishing research on the subject say climate change is real and humans cause it.

When assessing national security risks, the Department of Defense sides with the scientists. It doesn’t consider climate change a direct threat, but considers it a “threat multiplier” that can worsen direct threats such as terrorism and infectious disease spread.

At the subcommittee hearing, called to examine the DHS’ “misplaced” focus on climate change, one official said that only two to four of its employees worked on the climate components of the agency’s latest Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. In that review, the DHS said natural hazards driven by climate change could pose threats to infrastructure, thereby risking national security in some parts of the country.

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