I'm not saying a belief that religion will prevent global warming should mean an immediate disqualification as chair of the House Energy Committee - but I am not saying it shouldn't either.

There are some areas of politics, well, most, where articles of faith work just fine - are there any atheist politicians in national office? - because politics is subjective.  We hope they have some basic ideas of economics and technology but on a national energy committee, belief in higher order solutions is not credible.

Representative John Shimkus told the House Energy Subcommittee on Energy and Environment in March, 2009 (okay, that's a year and a half ago so maybe he came to his senses - Pres. Obama also said vaccines might cause Autism in 2008 and we assume he knows better now) "The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood."

But then he delves into some data, at least the kind of data global warming skeptics bookmark without understanding context; "Today we have about 388 parts per million in the atmosphere. I think in the age of dinosaurs, when we had the most flora and fauna, we were probably at 4,000 parts per million. There is a theological debate that this is a carbon-starved planet — not too much carbon. And the cost of a cap-and-trade on the poor is now being discovered."

I am not enough into politics to know what he means by 'theological debate' - I assume he does not mean actual theology is discussing the need for more greenhouse gases so perhaps it is a colloquial term for people who feel fervently about something.    And he is correct in saying that in prehistoric days CO2 levels were much higher without the same increase in temperature but does he accept that an ancestor of man lived among dinosaurs?  If so, I'd take his stance on evolution and not worry about his global warming beliefs.    Cap and Trade is dead so if he wants to continue to campaign against it, that's okay by me.

What he needs to understand is that modern man and modern life is clearly not adapted to 10X the CO2 levels we have now.

I'm not saying the chair of one of America's oldest Congressional committees needs to be close-minded to new ideas about causes and remedies of global warming, but saying it doesn't exist at all because the Bible says another flood won't happen is not doing a lot for the credibility of Republicans in Congress - someone with a better grasp of physics is needed here.