Steve King insults climate scientists and religious Americans simultaneously
Steve King knows that cantaloupes don’t grow in seawater.
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has, shall we say, a vivid oratorical style.
Last month, he noted that not all of the young immigrants who would benefit from the DREAM Act are star students. “For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” he said.
This week, he turned his eloquence to the topic of climate change. Here’s what he said on Tuesday at an event sponsored by the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity, as reported by The Messenger of Fort Dodge, Iowa:
King said efforts to fight global warming are both economically harmful and unnecessary.
“It is not proven, it’s not science. It’s more of a religion than a science,” he said.
Which kinda sounds like a slam not just on people who believe in climate change but on people who believe in God. As Daily Kos put it, “So to recap, global warming is bullshit, like religion.”
It’s not the first time King has made the religion comparison. He said something similar in 2010, and added that concern about climate change “might be the modern version of the rain dance.”
After his religion comment on Tuesday, King got all science-y:
He said that even if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes the earth to warm, environmentalists only look at the bad from that, not the good.
“Everything that might result from a warmer planet is always bad in (environmentalists’) analysis,” he said. “There will be more photosynthesis going on if the Earth gets warmer. … And if sea levels go up 4 or 6 inches, I don’t know if we’d know that.”
He said sea level is not a precise measurement.
“We don’t know where sea level is even, let alone be able to say that it’s going to come up an inch globally because some polar ice caps might melt because there’s CO2 suspended in the atmosphere,” he said.
Because King is unable to distinguish science from religion, he may be unaware that we do, in fact, know where sea level is. Scientists have “instruments” that “measure” it. Spoiler: It is rising.
Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.
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Steve King insults climate scientists and religious Americans simultaneously
