Australia reassures me that it isn’t just my country full of idiots


Senator Malcolm Roberts must be Australia’s version of Louie Gohmert.

He does make a good case that he is a waste of carbon, but you know, atmospheric CO2 is the problem, not carbon bound up in proteins and carbohydrates.

Comments

  1. =8)-DX says

    I guess he thinks we should use human meat for carbon sequestration? That actually doesn’t work… =/

  2. congenital cynic says

    The level of knownothingness on display in that tweet is truly stunning. But then the POTUS has regularly demonstrated that one doesn’t need to have a clue to tweet.

  3. Dunc says

    Wow. Every time I think I’ve heard the world’s stupidest climate change argument, someone has to go and prove me wrong.

  4. Lofty says

    Fortunately the party of nutters he’s a member of got less than half of their expected vote count at last week’s WA state election. 5% is still too many but it’s bearable. Mr Robert’s wacko party leader managed to utter some anti vax comments in the lead up to that election which sent a few tongues wagging. Australians are generally pretty good at getting their kids vaccinated.

  5. Zeppelin says

    Considering sodium is essential for human life, can we really risk not salting the earth wherever we go?

  6. numerobis says

    Dunc@3: this one is old. But it’s so dumb that I can’t even find a rebuttal at skeptical science.

  7. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    All you wind power fan(atics), we need CO2 in the atmosphere to supply the raw ingredient to power the turbines. Air!!
    Without CO2 it’s only O2, which would rust the turbines instantly. (and turbines kill birds, you birdkillers you) /satire
    —-(BTW)—–>> AIR = { ~80% Nitrogen (essentially inert), ~20% O2, <1% CO2 (~400 parts per million) }

    I have seen arguments asking (mockingly) “what about cows? you want to make them stop farting? good luck with that :-( ”
    And wasn’t it Palin herself (?) saying “plants _NEED_ CO2 to eat, so reducing CO2 will starve our agriculture”
    and of course here is our new Secretary of the EPA who says “CO2 ain’t bad, we don’t agree it causes climate change from human produced sources”

  8. Snoof says

    For those unfamiliar with Australian politics, Malcolm Roberts is a member of the xenophobic, nationalist, racist and generally omnibigoted One Nation party. In general, One Nation politicians are extraordinarily foolish and ill-informed, even by the standards of the Australian right wing. Not that stops people electing them, unfortunately, though it does mean the party tends to disintegrate under a wave of incompetence every so often.

  9. says

    And of course we have our right wing stupids here in Canada too. I was reading an article in The Walrus magazine about a cruise held late last year by Ezra Levant, mastermind behind the right wing website Rebel Media. One of the people on the cruise apparently believes the massive fire in Fort McMurray, Alberta last year might be the doing of ISIS. Or maybe NDP Premier Rachel Notley. (One of the amusing things about the story was reading how US academic Daniel Pipes apparently wasn’t anti-Muslim enough for some of the people on the cruise.)

  10. cartomancer says

    The human body is something like 70% water, but I expect this one would balk if we flooded his house.

  11. Larry says

    Wow. Every time I think I’ve heard the world’s stupidest climate change argument, someone has to go and prove me wrong.

    Well, as idiotic, stupid, and ridiculous this statement is, my personal choice comes from Senator James Inhofe, the pride of Oklahoma, the Ayatollah of Ass-a-hola, the Stupidest Man in the Senate, who displayed a snowball during a Senate hearing arguing that its mere existence disproves global warming.

  12. anchor says

    One presumes that these pathetic cases actually went to school to obtain an education. They must have had teachers and instructors who graded them. So how come they passed and graduated to end up in public office?

    Or did they just discover the considerable financial benefits and rewards associated with con-artistry and lying? Is there something like a school for assholes?

  13. says

    In light of this, I have decided to forego salt in favour of eating sodium and breathing chlorine. Arguments based on so-called fact (references to the second battle of Ypres, 1915, for instance) are obviously just fake news designed to promote Big Salt.

  14. zetopan says

    “One presumes that these pathetic cases actually went to school to obtain an education.”

    Some people are immune to education, just look at the creationists with actual science degrees.

    http://www.csharp.com/lisle.html
    http://www.noanswersingenesis.org.au/realsnelling.htm
    http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2016/12/1758-neil-huber.html
    http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2016/08/1710-william-harris.html
    http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2016/02/1594-bruce-evans.html
    http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2011/01/140-ann-gauger.html
    … etc. The idiot list is *much* longer than just these few.

  15. numerobis says

    Larry:

    Well, as idiotic, stupid, and ridiculous this statement is, my personal choice comes from Senator James Inhofe, the pride of Oklahoma, the Ayatollah of Ass-a-hola, the Stupidest Man in the Senate, who displayed a snowball during a Senate hearing arguing that its mere existence disproves global warming.

    Yeah, then Australia said “hold my beer”: https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/09/scott-morrison-brings-a-chunk-of-coal-into-parliament-video

    Scott Morrison is not just some random chump in the Oz Senate like Roberts, nor is he a mere senior senator from one of 50 states. He’s the *treasurer*.

  16. F.O. says

    What scares me is that there’s no stopping them.
    Reality is an opinion.
    No amount of idiocy will make their voters balk.
    They cannot be reached, at least not in any effective way I know of.