John Boehner hs no idea what he's talking about

Please hop on over to Crook and Liars and watch the video in the post I link to here. It is part of an interview of House Minority Leader John Boehner by George Stephanopolous. In this segment, Stephanopolous quizzes Boehner on the Republican plan to combat greenhouse gases and global warming.

There are a few things about this clip that are deeply disturbing. The first is Boehner's complete cluelessness on the issue of climate change. It is clear from a few basic error of fact in his responses that he has spent less than fifteen minutes of his life reviewing the science behind global warming.

The first of his stunning errors is the claim that carbon dioxide is not a carcinogen. It's not that he is wrong on this point, it's that the point is completely irrelevant. Global warming has nothing whatsoever to do with carcinogens, and one wonders whether Boehner even knows what a carcinogen is when he begins blathering about it. Carcinogens are substances which are known to cause cancer. Why Boehner thinks that carcinogens are relevant to the global warming debate is a complete mystery.

The second basic error of fact is Boehner's claim that cows release carbon dioxide through their digestive process and this is a major contributor to global warming. In fact, the major greenhouse gas they release is methane. So clearly Boehner is not up on even the most basic climate-change science. Of course, methane released by farming is a huge problem for our planet's climate. Indeed, the warming effect of methane is much worse than that of carbon dioxide. What is odd is that Boehner (along with many climate change apologists) seems to think that because this gas is released by cows, the problem is not ultimately, man made. And yet these cows are raised on farms for meat production. It is very much a man made problem.

Finally, if anything stands out about this interview other than Boehner's abject scientific illiteracy, it is a complete lack of ideas on the GOP's part for dealing with climate change. It is like pulling teeth as Stephanopolous tries to extract a plan of some sort from Boehner, and in the end the best Boehner can do is to promise that a plan is coming.

If there's any question as to why the GOP is largely irrelevant to most Americans under the age of 30, clips like these help provide the answer.