House Republicans are deciding who should be chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Apparently a leading candidate for the job is John Shimkus Republican from Illinois who thinks:
(1) We don’t have to do anything about climate change because the Bible says God promised not to destroy the world again after Noah’s flood.
(2) We shouldn’t reduce carbon emissions because it would be “taking away plant food.”
(3) “Today we have 388 parts per million in the atmosphere. I believe in the days of the dinosaurs, where we had the most flora and fauna, we were probably at 4,000 parts per million. There is a theological debate that this a carbon-starved planet, not too much carbon.”
(4) “When we breath in, we breath oxygen. When we breath out, we breath out carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is not a toxic emittent.”
This is the sort of person we depend on to solve the variety of problems this country confronts.
That Shimkus is a candidate for this committee tells us a lot about the intellectual capabilities of congressional Republicans and the people who put them in office.
It also tells us something about our increasingly slim chances of surviving for another century.
Tags: climate change, John Shimkus
