Fox News headliner Glenn Beck usually isn't much of a friend to the environmentalist movement; it was only a few days ago that he included "global warming" in a list of destructive lies foisted on the American public, and a few days before that that he seemed to recommend ritual suicide for scientists affiliated with the IPCC. It's a stance, one or two steps beyond skepticism, that Beck shares with most of his Fox News colleagues. So it was surprising to learn, in the course of Dennis McCafferty's breezy USA Weekend profile, that Beck is apparently a member of the global-warming faithful in his private life:

"You'd be an idiot not to notice the temperature change," he says. He also says there’s a legit case that global warming has, at least in part, been caused by mankind. He has tried to do his part by buying a home with a "green" design and using energy-saving products. "I’m willing to do anything but use the CFLs," he says of compact fluorescent light bulbs. "I put them in once and couldn't stand the way they lit up the room."

Was Beck misquoted? Taken out of context, maybe? The news host spoke to the issue a few days ago, complaining about inaccuracies in McCafferty's piece. But Mother Jones's Kate Sheppard notes that while "Beck had plenty of criticism of the USA Weekend story... he didn't raise any objections to the article's portrayal of his environmental views." Perhaps Beck has had a change of heart--which would make his tiff with Al Gore in this Babbleheads cartoon seem sadly dated.

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