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Heat converts Bush ally Robertson on global warming
Thu Aug 3, 2006 6:58 PM ET

By Timothy Gardner

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson said on Thursday the wave of scorching temperatures across the United States had converted him into a believer in global warming.

The view put him at odds with fellow Republican President George W. Bush, who has benefited politically from Robertson's backing and who has refused to embrace the concept of human-caused global warming.

"We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels," Robertson said on his "700 Club" broadcast. "It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air."

It was an abrupt about-face for Robertson who reaches about one million U.S. viewers daily and is credited for helping shape political views of evangelical Christians, a vibrant force behind the Republican Party.

Last October, Robertson said the National Association of Evangelicals was teaming up with "far left environmentalists" for saying global warming was caused by humans and needed to be mitigated.

Also last year, Robertson, 76, said natural disasters affecting the globe, including hurricanes Katrina and Rita that wrecked the U.S. Gulf Coast, might be signs that the biblical apocalypse was nearing.

Temperatures have soared to near record levels in some eastern regions and Robertson said that was "the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time."

Most scientists link greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide emitted from the burning of fossil fuels to global warming that could lead to heat waves, stronger storms and flooding from rising sea levels.

Bush, himself an evangelical Christian, pulled out of the international Kyoto Protocol setting limits on emissions causing global warming soon after taking office in 2001 saying it would hurt the economy and unfairly favored developing countries.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by David Storey; +1 646 223-6058, [email protected]))

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