Causes of Climate Change Misrepresented by Montana State Legislator

On February 18, 2019, the Montana House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee debated House Bill 418 which declares that carbon dioxide emissions do not cause climate change. During the debate, the bill’s sponsor, Representative Joe Read, claimed that carbon dioxide “has got a bad rap.” He then erroneously asserted that, while “[t]he climate is changing . . . CO2 [i.e., carbon dioxide] is not the culprit,” and has been wrongly “treated as a poison.”