Your State Representatives at Work

<$BlogMetaData$>March 10th, 2010


Your State Representatives at Work

For those of you that read this column living in Iowa, consider yourselves lucky. For the rest of us, we have state representatives in our district of the state that have lost their minds. Representatives Jim Bolin (Canton) and Dan Lederman (Dakota Dunes) sponsored a joint resolution in the Legislature that is absolutely the dumbest thing ever brought before the legislative body. They probably spent more time on this piece of paper than they spent on the budget cuts for the state. This was a joint resolution for both the house and Senate. Thank Goodness MaggieGillespie could see through the smoke screen. I sent Jim an email asking if he lost his mind. He hasn’t responded yet, and probably won’t. (Both Lederman and Bolin are Pro Hyperion by the way.)Ok enough suspense, here it is in a nutshell. Teaching balanced opinions of global warming and climate change in schools.

State of South Dakota

EIGHTY-FIFTH SESSION

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY, 2010

363R0643

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 1009

Introduced by: Representatives Kopp, Bolin, Brunner, Cronin, Curd, Feickert, Gosch,

Greenfield, Hamiel, Hoffman, Hunt, Iron Cloud III, Jensen, Juhnke, Kirkeby,

Lange, Lederman, Moser, Novstrup (David), Olson (Betty), Olson (Ryan),

Pitts, Putnam, Rausch, Russell, Schlekeway, Sly, Steele, Tidemann,

Turbiville, Van Gerpen, Verchio, and Wink and Senators Brown, Abdallah,

Bradford, Haverly, Maher, and Schmidt

1 A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION, Calling for balanced teaching of global warming in the

2 public schools of South Dakota.

3 WHEREAS, the earth has been cooling for the last eight years despite small increases in

4 anthropogenic carbon dioxide; and

5 WHEREAS, there is no evidence of atmospheric warming in the troposphere where the

6 majority of warming would be taking place; and

7 WHEREAS, historical climatological data shows without question the earth has gone

8 through trends where the climate was much warmer than in our present age. The Climatic

9 Optimum and Little Climatic Optimum are two examples. During the Little Climatic Optimum,

10 Erik the Red settled Greenland where they farmed and raised dairy cattle. Today, ninety percent

11 of Greenland is covered by massive ice sheets, in many places more than two miles thick; and

12 WHEREAS, the polar ice cap is subject to shifting warm water currents and the break-up

13 of ice by high wind events. Many oceanographers believe this to be the major cause of melting

1 polar ice, not atmospheric warming; and

2 WHEREAS, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for

3 all plant life on earth. Many scientists refer to carbon dioxide as "the gas of life"; and

4 WHEREAS, more than 31,000 American scientists collectively signed a petition to

5 President Obama stating: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of

6 carbon dioxide, or methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable

7 future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth's atmosphere and disruption of the earth's

8 climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon

9 dioxide will produce many beneficial effects on the natural plant and animal environments of

10 the earth":

11 NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the House of Representatives of the Eighty12

fifth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, the Senate concurring therein, that the South

13 Dakota Legislature urges that instruction in the public schools relating to global warming

14 include the following:

15 (1) That global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact;

16 (2) That there are a variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological,

17 cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena and

18 that the significance and interrelativity of these factors is largely speculative; and

19 (3) That the debate on global warming has subsumed political and philosophical

20 viewpoints which have complicated and prejudiced the scientific investigation of

21 global warming phenomena; and

22 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Legislature urges that all instruction on the theory

23 of global warming be appropriate to the age and academic development of the student and to

24 the prevailing classroom circumstances.

Now either these legislators really believe this or somebody or someone is laying the groundwork to a statement to come out that 19 million tons of carbon dioxide coming out of the Hyperion refinery is good for us because of all the beneficial effects on the natural plant and animal environments of the earth. Don’t forget that carbon dioxide isn’t harmful and they want this taught in the schools to balance the comments about climate change being caused by manmade sources, like the wind causing large chunks of ice to break away from glaciers. OH COME ON NOW. SURELY THEY DON’T BELIEVE THIS!

I believe climate change is cyclical and that it evolves over time, but this is about as radical as one can get. If one looks at museums in the state of South Dakota you will see sea shells, remains of dinosaurs, fossilized plant life from seas and jungles. But this evolved over millions of years and it may happen again. The problem is that with all the pollution that is manmade, we are rushing natures natural process. That my friend is the problem! We were put on this earth to be stewards of the land not destroyers. That is enough from my soap box, please please write to Mr. Bolin and Mr. Lederman and ask them what were they thinking .