Steve King: One ‘good side’ of climate change could be shrinking deserts

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) at a recent town hall told constituents to consider the “other, good side” of climate change, such as shrinking deserts, the Sioux City Journal reported on Wednesday.

Asked by an attendee about climate geo-engineering, King said he would further research the subject before pivoting to talking about the impact of climate change on the Midwest, including major flooding in Iowa in March.

{mosads}”Seventy percent of the Earth is covered by water. If the Earth warms, then there is evaporation that goes into the atmosphere. According to Newton’s First Law of Physics, what goes up must come down,” King said last week, according to the newspaper. “That means it will rain more and more places. It might rain harder in some places, it might snow in some of those places. But it’s surely gotta shrink the deserts and expand the green growth, there’s surely got to be some good in that. So I just look at the other, good side.”

King, who has a history of outlandish and divisive remarks, recently sparked controversy in a discussion of flooding in Iowa, contrasting Iowans with the victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 in New Orleans.

“Here’s what [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] tells me: We go to a place like New Orleans and everybody’s looking around saying ‘who’s gonna help me?’ ” King said in a March town hall. Iowans, he said, would instead say “wait a minute, let me get my boots, it’s Joe that needs help. Let’s go down to his place and help him.”

The comment came on the heels of widely condemned remarks King made in an interview with The New York Times when he questioned how the terms “white nationalist” or “white supremacist” had become offensive.