There's seemingly no end to politicians and science stupidity

[thewayne]

A Washington state representative wants to tax bicycles because 'it isn't good for the environment.' You see, when you're riding a bike, your respiration rate goes up and that increases your expiration of carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas and bad for the environment.

Sadly, I am not making this shit up. This guy believes that driving a car is better for the environment than riding a bike.

He also argues that bicyclists don't pay road tax, when in Seattle gas tax pays for only 4% of the Seattle Department of Transportation budget, state-wide the gas tax pays for a quarter of the State DOT budget. Most bicyclists also drive cars, so his argument falls rather flat.

The stupid, it BURNS!

http://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2013/03/02/state-lawmaker-says-bicycling-is-not-good-for-the-environment-should-be-taxed/

http://science.slashdot.org/story/13/03/04/1238258/state-rep-says-biking-is-not-earth-friendly-because-breathing-produces-co2

Comments

[moiraj.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fan of the style of debate which involves taking your opponent's theory and stretching it to its most ridiculous extreme, but as he is already in a ridiculous place - Does he want everyone who uses the street without a car to be taxed? Inline skaters, skateboarders, joggers?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That would be a logical extrapolation of his position, but to me it doesn't seem like we're dealing with a heck of a lot of logic.

I guess his ultimate citizen would be one who is a couch potato doing absolutely nothing. Watching TV or web surfing requires electricity which produces greenhouse gasses, reading paper books gets in to carbon sequestration issues, eating anything requires petrochemicals for fertilizer and transport. So I guess his perfect non-taxable citizen would be one lying on the couch slowly dying.

[silveradept]

And yet, this person apparently appealed to enough voters that they elected them. That says volumes about our intelligence.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I recently listened to an old interview with Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Wired Geek Dads. It's really sad how much respect for science, much less a basic understanding of science itself, has fallen from the masses.

[silveradept]

If I were personally going to point fingers, it would be at the Texas Board Of Education, for allowing the fringiest of the fringe to gain any sort of threshold on their body, which in turn caused the textbooks to suffer and emboldened the fringe elsewhere to do the same to their state's education systems and standards.

But that's me making an extrapolation that's probably reductionist.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

They are certainly part of the problem. There is a movement underway to make Texas a more Democratic state to lessen the strength of the RNC. It will be interesting to see how it plays out over the next few years.