This'll tickle your funny bone. Anthony Watts has been privileged with an advance copy of testimony to a US Senate Committee (archived here, with the pdf file of the testimony copied here). It probably makes him feel so important to have a copy before it's presented. (Surely that's frowned upon.) Some members of the US Senate Committee for Environment and Public Works obviously wanted to have a little fun at the expense of the US taxpayers, so they called up a chap by the name of David Legates to testify.
David has impressive credentials. He says:
I am a Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware and I served as the Delaware State Climatologist from 2005 to 2011. I also am an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Agricultural Economics & Statistics and the Physical Ocean Science and Engineering Program. I received a B.A. in Mathematics and Geography, a M.S. in Geography, and a Ph.D. in Climatology, all from the University of Delaware
I checked because I found it almost impossible to credit that a university would employ a ratbag like David Legates. It does - but he doesn't have any profile there :(
CO2 is animal food!
I started reading his testimony but had to stop on page two when I got to this bit:
Considering that CO2 is food for plants and animals...Yep, you read that right. Here it is in black and white and grey - see page two:
David Legates isn't just running the normal denier spiel that "CO2 is plant food". Now it's animal food, too. Do you reckon he feeds his livestock CO2? Would he feed it to them frozen, you know, slabs of dry ice which would look just like salt licks? Surely not. Do their tongues stick to the CO2 when they try to lick it?
David Legates might call himself a climatologist, but he's a science denying climatologist. He has graced this blog before - here and here. Oh, and he's a member of the Cornwall Alliance cult.
Pity David's animals. Pity the poor Delawarians :(
