Glenn Beck holds up Maurice Strong as evidence of 'global government' conspiracy

Ideologically fuelled climate sceptics, such as Fox News' Beck claim global warming is being used by malevolent forces to achieve their master plan

Glenn Beck Photograph: Michael Caulfield/WireImage

Lock up your children: the bogey man cometh. We know this becauseFox News rabble-rouser Glenn Beck has kindly forewarned us. Yesterday, he informed his devoted followers that they should be on the look out for the approaching tentacles of a "global government". The contention of many ideologically fuelled climate sceptics, such as Beck, is that global warming is being used by malevolent, socialist forces lurking in the shadows to usher in a "new world order". The commies have invented this faked, jumped-up "science" as a Trojan horse to achieve their master plan. Or something like that, anyway.
Beck has obviously been thumbing through the catalogue of conspiracy theories online because he decided to use a quote from a man calledMaurice Strong which has been bouncing around unchallenged in the sceptic echo chamber for years as evidence that the heralding of a global government is a clear and present danger. Here's what Strong, a former executive director of the United Nations Environment Programmeis said to have told a reporter in 1990:

What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? In order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring this about?

Beck responds to this quote with his trademark "humour":

Now, I want to be very clear here, because we talked to the reporter that did this interview in 1990 up in Canada. And I want to be very clear: He [Strong] was fantasizing about a plot of a novel he was thinking about writing. [Pause.] Yeah.

Beck then reveals to his audience that Strong has not actually written any novels since 1990 – or ever.

You know what? He's been busy – he's got this great novel idea, but he hasn't had time to do it because he's involved in collapsing the global economies into the hands of a global government. Isn't that interesting? It's almost like his book. Hmm. Maybe it's performance art.

Media Matters has already performed a detailed take-down of Beck's "analysis", but, needless to say, this is unlikely to influence Beck's legion of truthers who, judging by the fact that the term "Maurice Strong" is nowtrending on Twitter, have evidently rushed online to find out the real deal about this – in their lingo - "watermelon" evildoer. When they throw his name into the search engines they will also see that his name has been linked to the Illuminati, the Bilderberg group and the "Jewish banking conspiracy". Frankly, it's a bit of a surprise that this 81-year-old Canadian hasn't been accused of lurking in the undergrowth on the grassy knoll in Dallas on 22 November 1963. (What isn't a surprise, though, is that the Maurice Strong meme is also being perpetuated by the likes of our dear friends Lord Monckton and James Delingpole – both of whom have appeared on the Glenn Beck show.)
Glenn Beck did not include Strong in his show and I wonder how many of Beck's viewers will bother to visit Maurice Strong's own website where he actually goes to the bother of responding to the many accusations that have been tossed his way over the years? Here, he responds to the use of the quote Beck took such a fancy to, a quote that has also been used by a columnist for Canada's Financial Post called Peter Foster:

A particularly dishonest statement by long-time critic, Peter Foster, to his own editor, citing a fictional account which was clearly stated to be an extreme scenario of what might happen by the year 2030 if we failed to act. This specifically stated that it was not a prediction, and certainly not a recommendation, but the kind of prospect we must seek to avoid.

This response by the accused party doesn't seem to have made it into Beck's report, but I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised for it is a classic example of the decontextualised mudslinging that now persists among certain sections of the climate debate. Personally, I know very little about the history, ideology and motives of Maurice Strong – he may well be one of the four horseman of the apocalypse for all I know - but it strikes me that his critics should at least hear what he has to say in his defence. But, then again, that might elicit an inconvenient truth, as their other leading bogey man would say.