In case you were wondering, riding a bicycle does not contribute a damaging amount of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
That announcement comes from the office of Ed Orcutt, a ranking Republican member of the Washington state House of Representatives Transportation committee, who recently had to retract a written statement claiming otherwise. In a letter to a bike shop owner, Dan Carlson, Orcutt defended his proposal to attach a $25 fee to bicycle sales over $500 by claiming:
A cyclists has [sic] an increased heart rate and respiration … Since CO2 is deemed a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, bicyclist are actually polluting when they ride.
What’s the deal? Are those who fail science doomed to run as Republicans?