Maybe we should follow the path of Noah

Don't want to ruin your day with scary news  - and probably won't anyway.  But you ought to set aside a s little time to read National Geographic's terrific cover story  on climate change in the September issue. Without spoiling the plot about a planet in serious  trouble from climate change, we are once again reminded that there is genuine scientific agreement by the experts that we can expect a different world by the year 2100.

Coastal cities will be under water as seas rise more than three feet;  massive glaciers will have melted;  thermal expansion will drive up sea levels.   As the article notes:

"A profoundly altered planet is what our fossil-fuel-driven civilization is creating, a planet where Sandy-scale flooding will be more common and more destructive for the world's coastal cities...We have irreversibly  committed future generations to a hotter world and rising seas."

The Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration adopted 6.6 feet (two meters)  sea rise as its highest of four scenarios for 2100.  The U.S. Corps of Engineers  says planners should be prepared for a rise of five feet.

I know.  Many of us will be gone by 2100, so why worry?   Well, Hurricane Sandy, described as the "second costliest" in U.S. history,  claimed more than 100 lives.  Sandy proved that there is already plenty to worry about.

Meantime, I wish there were a way to flood the  mailboxes  of such climate change deniers  as Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel and California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher with this issue of National Geographic.   During his failed campaign against  Sen. Sherrod  Brown, Mandel hissed that climate change research was "riddled with errors" - as if he were on the highest ground to  know about such things.  And Rohrabach, as well as many of those wingnuts who agree,  continue to sneer that the notion of climate change is a "fraud".

Oh?

Rohrabacher; roaring again on climate 'fraud'

Not to bore you or anything after my villainous attack on the Rev. Santorum in my  last post, I must add another to the list of Grumpy Abe Linguistic  Lunatics (GALL) awardees.

True, he's way out in Southerrn California and only imperils us with minimal harm. But we shouldn't igrnore him altogether, should we?

We refer you to U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher.  He recently went around calling illegal immigrants "white trash" that should receive no aid from the government.  And now he is again ripping notions of climate change as"fraud" designed by local elected officials. 

From there he says our problem is really some unamed Nigerian who is making decisions for Americans as a UN guy.

 I'm getting dizzy, so I'll stop there by warning you that the congressman  is a senior member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.  It has also been pointed out by  others that the committee chair is Rep. Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who also is a climate change denier.

Wingnut Republicans who control Speaker John Boehner's haunted house don't leave any  crazy idea to chance. 

Rohrabacher's ugly roar

ON SUCH A NICE, SUNNY DAY - finally -  sit seems brutish to  describe the threat by a California Republican congressman against those who might disagree with him on how to fight terrorism.   But it leaves me little wiggle-room  in offering Dana Rohrabacher, a raw-meat right-winger, the Grumpy Abe Lingistic Lunacy (GALL) Award for his over-the-top comments during a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee in responding to three members of the European Parliament.  He said, in a burst of anger:

"Well, I hope it's your families, I hope it's your families that suffer the consequences (of a terrorist attack.)"  

And remember, this guy's a congressman!  Over the years he's said a lot of loony things. This one ranks with sky-diving without a parachute.   So maybe I should have addressed the award to the loonies who elect him every two years.  You wouldn't get me anywhere their neighborhood at night.