Shepard Smith Lectures Fox News Viewers on Climate Change

On his show Monday, Fox News host Shepard Smith decided it was time once again to mount his liberal high horse and make sure his viewers understood that while he is happy to take the career afforded him by the conservative network, he isn’t one of THOSE pesky Republicans you might see during the primetime hours. Perhaps in the vain hope that NBC will come sniffing around for a Megyn Kelly replacement on the Today Show, Smith launched into an absurd and misguided attack on the GOP, blasting them for refusing to accept the “science” of climate change.

Smith’s impromptu lecture came in the midst of reporting about a new climate report from the government, which insisted that rising temperatures could end up doing damage to the U.S. economy and lower the life expectancy of people living around the country. The report has been largely ignored by the White House and Republicans in Congress, a fact that got Smith’s goat as he took to the airwaves on Monday.

“Heat waves are getting stronger, floods are growing larger, wildfires are obliterating more of America’s landscape. It’s because of climate change that’s largely man-made. Our burning of fossil fuels is damaging planet Earth, and the time to stop it is running out,” Smith said. “By the end of the century, climate change could shrink the U.S. economy by hundreds of billions of dollars. That is the warning in a new report released on Friday, ahead of schedule, by the Trump administration.”

After laying out the straight reporting, which was accurate enough, Smith began laying into the GOP.

“This is not a political issue,” he said, nonsensically. “It’s science. But some have made it political – especially Republicans. And as a result, a lot of folks have missed this report. It was dropped, as I said, ahead of schedule, on Black Friday, when a lot of Americans are busy shopping, eating Thanksgiving leftovers, and spending time with the family. But it’s extremely important.”

We don’t doubt for a second that the Trump administration released this report with timing in mind, but that doesn’t mean that Republicans are politicizing climate change. To the contrary, this has been a political movement on the left from the moment anyone ever heard the words “global warming.” That’s ALL it is to them. It is yet another vehicle with which they can expand the government, put handcuffs on private industry, and pick and choose the winners and losers of the economy. It is a weapon with which to destroy free market capitalism, and the GOP’s only fault is in recognizing that scheme for what it is.

No one needs Shepard Smith, of all people, taking up the cause.

If he was looking to make a difference for the sake of the warming climate, though, perhaps Smith really did accomplish something with his rant. Thousands of viewers likely turned off their energy-consuming televisions in disgust. Surely there’s a polar bear somewhere who will live to see another day, thanks to Shepard’s altruistic deed.