Alternative Information

grist.org

Wow, this is old school: On Tuesday the Georgia legislature held a hearing called "Climate change: fact or fiction?" Listen to these blasts from the past:

"In the media, we hear the gloom and doom side," said Rep. Jeff Lewis (R-White), chairman of the House Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee that held the hearing. "There is alternative information out there."

Indeed there is! Puzzlingly, the "alternative information" continues to be offered solely by the same core group of four or five people that have been offering it for years now. But no mind!

"What this has done is it has affirmed my assumption coming in here that there are too many opinions on this subject" to draw a conclusion, said Rep. Clay Cox (R-Lilburn), a member of the House committee.

There you have it. As long as alternative information is available, one cannot draw any conclusions. I wonder if the Republicans in the Georgia legislature apply that same epistemological standard to all their decision making. Seems like it would kind of slow things down.

One thing's for sure, though: whether climate change is fact or fiction, ethanol's the solution! That's something about which Georgia legislators have no difficulty drawing conclusions.