BREAKING NEWS: Blaine Doesn't Know What He's Talking About

The Post-Dispatch has more on the ridiculous press release from Blaine Luetkemeyer we flagged earlier today, in which Blaine calls for the US to cut funding for the United Nation's climate change research panel.

The panel in question, which included hundreds of scientists from more than 100 countries, famously authored a series of reports two years ago concluding that global climate change is “very likely” to have a human cause.

The panel predicted that global temperatures would rise by anywhere from 3.2 to 7.2 degrees by the end of the century, accelerating the melting of glaciers and the rise of the world’s oceans and leading to potentially catastrophic effects.

The panel was awarded the Nobel Prize for its work — something that doesn’t seem to impress Luetkemeyer. The first-term congressman observed that hundreds of international scientists have criticized the UN panel report. (emphasis added)

So on one hand, we have a Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists from more than 100 countries. On the other hand, we have the self-serving claims of a freshman Congressman with a long, embarrassing record of spreading false information about climate change legislation.  Who to believe?

And what do the Junk Scientists think of Blaine's moronic criticism?

Given the strength of those accusations, we contacted Stephen Schneider, a biology professor at Stanford University and one of the authors of the reports in question.

Schneider said that every chapter of the reports had hundreds of reviewers, many of them cutting-edge scientists. He argued that many who have challenged the results have little expertise in matters related to climate.

“To characterize what we did as junk science is, frankly, a joke,” he said.

Referring to Luetkemeyer and others in Congress who have attacked the conclusions, he added: “That’s coming from people who wouldn’t know quality science if it sat on their laps and spoke to them.”

Ouch.