Pathetically ignorant Republican anti-science snake oil

DERPIn a congressional hearing this week titled “UN Climate Talks and Power Politics — It’s Not About the Temperature,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher came up with one of the more bizarre right wing climate change denial fantasies in recent memory; Rohrabacher says scientists need to start addressing the greenhouse gases emitted by rotting vegetation.

Rohrabacher does not believe in human-caused climate change, but he has a solution ready to go — clear out those dangerous rainforests and cut down all those old trees.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs oversight subcommittee made it clear during a Wednesday hearing that he doesn’t believe in man-made global warming. But if it were true — and most of the world’s scientists agree it is — Rohrabacher said he’s hit on an answer by tackling the 80 to 90 percent of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions “generated by nature itself”: Namely, yank down old trees and get rid of the rotting wood in rainforests. “Is there some thought being given to subsidizing the clearing of rainforests in order for some countries to eliminate that production of greenhouse gases?” the California Republican asked Todd Stern, the top U.S. climate diplomat and lead witness at the hearing. “Or would people be supportive of cutting down older trees in order to plant younger trees as a means to prevent this disaster from happening?”

Good grief, people. How did we end up in a situation where one of the two major political parties is wandering blind in La La Land, brushing aside the opinions of qualified scientists to blurt out such reprehensible and stupid bullshit?

The really sick and twisted part of it is that Rohrabacher doesn’t even believe in global warming! He’s not suggesting cutting down the world’s rainforests as a legitimate idea. He’s just sticking a thumb in the scientists’ eyes.