Shimkus and the rainbow sign

The man who would like to be chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee thinks that God’s promise to Noah means we don’t have to worry about global warming.

It’s possible that the House Republicans will not decide to make John Shimkus of Illinois the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Thank Heaven for small mercies.

Shimkus thinks that the promise to Noah in Genesis 8 - “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease” - means we don’t have to worry about global warming. Perhaps he should remember the words of the spiritual:

God gave Noah the rainbow sign:
No more water, but the fire next time.

Don’t turn this off half-way; if so, you’ll miss the part about how the planet is “carbon-starved” because there’s less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than there was in the dinosaur age. The scariest aspect of the video: Nobody laughs.

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com

6 thoughts on “Shimkus and the rainbow sign”

  1. Wow. Just, wow. A carbon-starved planet, huh?

    Just for grins, I checked the MSDS for carbon dioxide. It begins showing toxic effects at around 1%. If Representive Shimkus wants to take us back to the Jurassic, atmospheric CO2 concentrations are going to make us all drowsy. The OSHA limit for healthy adults exposed to CO2 in the course of their work is 0.5% (since I suspect Representative Shimkus probably has some problems with arithmetic, that is 5000 ppm).

    Of course, Representative Shimkus would probably like to do away with all of the socialists in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration too.

    Just, wow.

  2. Yes, Shimkus is good for a laugh, but who're the alternatives? I doubt Upton can win. We're left with Barton, Stearns, & a few mangy others.

  3. YouTube took this down because of their policy on "scams and commercially deceptive content." Are they saying that the video is a fake or in some way a deceptive scam? Or are they saying that it's Shimkus's claims that fall into that category?

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