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At Yesterday’s hearing on climate change adaptation before the House Energy & Commerce Committee Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) made all sorts of ridiculous claims about global warming, the most idiotic being a suggestion that us humans will deal with the issue by finding some shade. [6]

Such a ludicrous and ill-informed claim leads me to two possible conclusions, either Barton has completely lost it, or the $2.5 million he recieved in donations [7]over the years from the oil, gas and utility lobby is doing its magic.

I suspect it’s a bit of both.

What makes Barton look even more ridiculous is that his claims appear to be based on evidence provided to him by a gentleman named Christopher Monckton [8]who he cites in his statement. Monckton is not a climate scientist, has never published any scientific research and is in fact a journalist by training.

The biggest thing Monckton has done in his life appears to be making a boardgame puzzle. This is the same Monckton whose answer to the AIDS epidemic was:

I wonder who Barton turns to for advice on health care policy? The local flowershop? Any responsible lawmaker uses the best available experts to inform policy decisions. If Barton was to do that he would see that the likes of the US Academy of Science [9] or NASA [10] (both organizations are at his disposal) are very concerned about this issue and have decades of research to justify their concern.

Here’s the video, watch it and laugh because it is nothing more than a complete joke. So much so that I have made a request that he be added to the Official Moron Registry. [11] I think he might actually have a shot at Moron of the Year - maybe even the decade!

And I’m not the only one who thinks Barton is officially a moron: Joe Barton is dumber than you thought possible [12]

Rep. Barton: Climate change is ‘natural,’ humans should just ‘get shade’ — invites ‘expert’ TVMOB (!) to testify [13]

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