double-ew-tee-eff?17?

I thought this was a parody when I first read it but then I googled "John Linder" and he is indeed a congressman...

"Global Warming" had a precursor in capturing the hearts and minds of the world. Michael Crichton, in his novel "State of Fear," brilliantly juxtaposes the world's current political embrace of "global warming" with the popular embrace of the "science" of eugenics a century ago. For nearly 50 years, from the late 1800s through the first half of the 20th century, there grew a common political acceptance by the world's thinkers, political leaders and media elite that the "science" of eugenics was settled science. There were a few lonely voices trying to be heard in the wilderness in opposition to this bogus science, but they were ridiculed or ignored.

I know reading Michael Crichton's "State of Fear" is a prerequisiite for entrance into wingnuttia, but internalizing the "eugenics is global warming science" drivvel and spewing it forth in an op-ed is usually left to paranoid schizophrenic idiots.

Twenty-nine states passed laws allowing sterilization. Ultimately, 60,000 Americans were sterilized -- some legally. The Germans were the most progressive. They had help. The Rockefeller Foundation funded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the work of its central racial scientists, one of whom was Josef Mengele.

No hyperbole there. I wonder whether Jonah Goldberg, who was so upset at Ellen Goldberg's Holocaust reference last week might have anything to say about this. Probably not.

Following this, Linder gets the conclusions wrong on Antarctica; paleoclimate; and ocean carbon sinks. And then there's this:

In order to focus on you and what you are doing to increase the CO2 in the atmosphere, which, as everyone knows will destroy the globe, we do not discuss the activities of termites. Fifteen years ago it was estimated that the digestive tracts of termites produce about 50 billion tons of CO2 and methane annually. That was more than the world's production from burning fossil fuel.

John Linder, in "The Orkinman"

Additionally, cattle, horses and other ruminant animals are huge producers of both CO2 and methane, but, being unable to respond to our demands on this issue, their activity is ignored.

Bullshit. Agricultural CO2 production isn't nearly as important as methane. And people are trying to figure out how to trap and use methane to generate electricity. And methane doesn't stay in the atmosphere nearly as long as CO2. But why do I even bother.

When it comes to methane, another greenhouse gas, termites are responsible for 11 percent of the world's production from natural sources. Seventy-six percent comes from wetlands, which provide habitat conducive to bacteria, which produce 145 million metric tons of methane per year during the decomposition of organic material. It is curious that the very alarmists on climate change are alarmists on saving and increasing wetlands.

That's just beautiful. Someone should print that out and frame it. But wait, there's more!

Many of you will remember the "scientific" studies 30 years ago about the destruction of the ozone layer, particularly at the poles, that would reduce the atmosphere's ability to stop infrared rays from the sun. We would see increasing incidence of skin cancer and increasing temperatures.

Infrared? Skin cancer? See why I thought this was a parody when I first read it?

When Freon was invented it was considered a miracle gas. It replaced, in refrigeration units, a combination of toxic gases that, if released, actually killed people. But the settled science concluded that human activity was a threat to the planet. We outlawed the production of CFCs and thousands of people across the world died from eating rancid food due to the loss of refrigeration.

Thousands of people died from rancid food? I'm still at a loss for snark. The article finishes up with the usual misconceptions of anthropogenic contribution vs natural production; scientists claimed global cooling 30 years ago; and it's a natural cycle of the sun. But that quackery isn't even worth mentioning anymore.