An excellent article in Monday's Washington Times by John Linder a Georgia Republican who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee sees some parallels between today's widely scientifically accepted global warming theory and the widely scientifically accepted eugenics theory of the early 20th century.

He also observes that “A recent study completed at UC Davis concluded that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere 300 million years ago was on the order of 2,000 ppm.” This is the same concentration that many experts say will exist at the end of this century if we continue to burn the remaining reserves of fossil fuels. Linder then goes on to ask a very pertinent but too often neglected question. “If it is a given that human burning of fossil fuels is what will cause an increase of CO2 levels up to 2,000 ppm in the next 93 years, don't they owe us an explanation as to who burned those fossil fuels 300 million years ago?”

Gus diZerega - 2/20/2007

In what I have read about atmospheric science, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has had a long term tendency to decline. See for example, M. McElroy, Comparison of Planetary Atmospheres: Mars, Venus, and Earth, Lynn Margulis and Lorraine Olendzenski, eds. Environmental Evolution, MIT Press, 1992.

300 million years is long before the dinosaurs. Assuming I have read correctly, these findings are hardly surprising or relevant to contemporary debates. And if they are, you should also know that the sun has been heating upo slowly since before 300 million years ago- so the same CO2, all else remaining the same, would be hotter.

The scientific mind of a Republican politician (who libertarians should already know is incompetent on politics) should hardly be taken seriously. Another Republican politician, also from Georgia, State House Rep. Ben Bridges, chairman of the retirement committee in the state house, has said

“Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion."

It gets worse and worse but go see for yourself what the scientific intelligence of Georgia Republican politicians amounts to.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/012504.php

It's not just a Georgia malady.

Texas House Appropriations Committee, Warren Chisum, another Republican who I suspect is also skeptical of global warming, doesn't even believe that the earth revolves around the sun.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/2/16/114553/289

When an ideological movement begins having a strong emotional rejection to what science and scientists are arguing, look at the company they start keeping....