| Title | Montana Legislator Introduces Bills to Give His State its Own Science | |
| Date | Friday February 22 2019, @11:51AM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the define-pi==3-has-already-been-tried dept. | ||
It's no secret that some of our federal legislators don't have a firm grip on scientific evidence; it only takes watching a session of the House Science Committee, where one member suggested the climate-driven rise of the oceans might instead be caused by rocks falling into the ocean.
What's often overlooked is that state legislators are even worse (though it's not clear how much this is a product of there simply being more of them). Each year, they oversee a variety of attempts to introduce pseudoscience into the public schools of a number of states.
[...] The legislator in question is Republican Joe Read, who represents an area north of Missoula, home of many fine scientists at the University of Montana. Read has eight bills under consideration in the current session of the legislature, and two of those focus on climate change.
As a result, the [first] bill would prohibit state agencies, officials, and employees from doing anything to cooperate with federal efforts to limit greenhouse gas emissions. If passed, the Montana government "may not implement or enforce in any way any federal regulation, rule, or policy implementing a federal greenhouse gas regulatory program."
But if you thought Read's grasp of constitutional law was shaky, you should check out his reason for objecting to doing anything about climate change. That's laid out in his second bill, which targets both science education and in-state programs designed to reduce carbon emissions. And it doesn't mince words, suggesting that pretty much all the scientists have it wrong: "the [US] National Climate Assessment makes the same errors as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the National Academy of Sciences is also fundamentally wrong about climate change."
What are those errors? They are not reality based. Rep. Read claims "all Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change arguments to prove claims of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide have failed," even though we've measured that increase in a number of ways. There are also things that are difficult to comprehend, like the statement that "the carbon-14 data shows that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claim that human emissions have decreased the 'buffer capacity of the carbonate system' is an invalid claim."
More coverage at the Billings Gazette.
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printed from SoylentNews, Montana Legislator Introduces Bills to Give His State its Own Science on 2024-04-23 07:44:57