Last week the House Committee on Science & Technology held its first hearing on Section One of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report. This is the same report, you’ll recall, that concludes, as Chairman Gordon put it succinctly the other day:

“We know with 100 percent certainty that global warming is occurring and with 90 percent certainity that humans are causing it. Case closed.”

In other words, as Al Gore likes to say:

“The debate is over.”

Well, turns out some members of Congress would beg to differ…87% of Congressional Republicans to be exact. One of those global warming deniers is our very own wingnut, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA-46), who distinguished himself at the hearing by one-upping Bill Frist’s Terry Schiavo diagnosis feat by concluding, without the benefit of video evidence mind you, that the global warming of 55 million years ago may have been due to…wait for it…”dinosaur flatulence.”

Watch the video HERE…you know you want to (big h/t to Think Progress)

To me, the most striking thing about Rohrabacher’s comment is his deadpan delivery, the complete lack of anything even resembling irony in his voice or face. I mean, a chartiable observer might conclude that he was trying to equate the absurdity of the dinosaur flatulence theory with the absurdity, as he sees it, of blaming humans for the current global warming trend. Instead, he comes off as though he really thinks dinosaurs farting contributed to an extended period of global warming. Of course, the truly depressing thing about the comment is the utter contempt with which these Republicans who deny the climate crisis treat science.

Well, thank God the grownups are in charge now. Nancy Pelosi spoke at the hearing as well and had some choice words for the global warming deniers whose majority status until recently essentially guaranteed that the entire Congress denied global warming:

For twelve years, the leadership in the House of Representatives stifled all discussion and debate of global warming. That long rejection of reality is over, to the relief of Members on both sides of the aisle.

How’s that for a frame: the Republican rejection of reality. And Congressman Rohrabacher is the poster boy.