Many of us know that Republicans have a very hard time accepting science. Candidates across the country, like Sharron Angle, Rand Paul, and now Ron Johnson, have been the source of great comedy to many of us for their "ideas" on global warming and climate change. However, we should not downplay the severity of their positions and the consequences of them if they are elected to the United States Senate.
Ron Johnson, clearly someone who struggled with high school sciences, offered this explanation on climate change:
"A global warming skeptic, Johnson said extreme weather phenomena were better explained by sunspots than an overload of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, as many scientists believe. "I absolutely do not believe in the science of man-caused climate change," Johnson said. "It's not proven by any stretch of the imagination." Johnson, in an interview last month, described believers in manmade causes of climate change as "crazy" and the theory as "lunacy." "It's far more likely that it's just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time," he said."
http://www.jsonline.com/...
Of course, the idea that sunspots are driving global warming has been debunked many times. Sunspot activity occurs in 11-year cycles, and thus could not provide the fuel for long-term climate change.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/...
But my favorite item from JSOnline article was this quote from Ron Johnson: "Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere "(excess carbon) gets sucked down by trees and helps the trees grow,"
Yes, that is an exact quote.
I know there has been a lot of talk about the enthusiasm gap this election, and progressives do have very legitimist reasons to be unhappy with many policy decisions. That being said, we cannot let one of the few progressive champions in the Senate, Russ Feingold, lose to somebody who clearly should not have received his science credits in high school. We cannot afford to let the tea party get more control and influence over Congress. Regardless of what you think about the current Congress or how President Obama is doing, please get out and vote this election, so that these clowns do not ruin everything we have worked so hard to achieve.