During a hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) made a bizarre claim while opposing the idea of climate mitigation programs: Nobody needs these programs because taxes weren't necessary to make the glaciers melt during the previous glacial maximum in the Pleistocene epoch.
The clip was flagged by Esquire's Charles P. Pierce on Thursday afternoon.
"People are not affecting climate change," said Greene. "You’re going to tell me that back in the Ice Age, how much taxes did people pay, and how many changes did governments make to melt the ice? The climate is going to continue to change. And there is no reason to just open up our borders and allow everyone in and continue to funnel over $50 billion or however many billions of dollars or trillions of dollars to foreign countries all over the world simply because they don’t like the climate change.”
Greene is technically correct that it is doubtful there were any taxes as we know them during the Pleistocene, which mostly predated the invention of agriculture, an essential step to creating fixed, complex societies that could have a government capable of collecting taxes.
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Climate change denial groups have long cited the fact that natural events have driven previous changes in global climate to argue that human emissions from industrial and agricultural activity have nothing to do with the current warming. This argument doesn't make any sense, and contradicts reams of data directly connecting human emissions to the present climate shifts.
Greene, a far-right lawmaker who has previously promoted the QAnon movement, also came under fire this week for telling teachers' union president Randi Weingarten during a hearing that she is not really a mother because her daughter is by marriage only.
Watch the hearing clip below or at this link.
Marjorie Taylor Greene Rants About 'Ice Age' to Distract From Scientific Datawww.youtube.com
