35,000 walrus need no 'proven proof'

It may offer small consolation but  I did want this entry to let you know that  humans are not the only stressed-out creatures on the planet today. Thanks to this remarkable AP photo that arrived via ThinkProgress, we learned that some 35,000  walrus sought solid ground  on a beach in northwest Alaska, driven landward as rising temperatures melted their ice base offshore. (Note the inland bulge from the sea)

Probably won't convince Alaska's Sarah Palin, the state's leading climate change denier that worrisome things are happening that are easily viewed from her front porch. After all, as she has reminded us, it snowed in Alaska last year, so where's the proof of global warming?

There was some of that gibberish in a debate involving the Republican Senate candidate in Iowa, Joni Ernst.  She did fuzz up her thoughts by saying she believed climate was changing but added that she was at a  loss to know what caused it, or whether human beings had anything to do with it.

As she noted earlier,  "I have not seen proven proof".

Good grief.  What is "proven  proof"?  Is it the same as "true facts"?  

As I have written before, when this generation of pols passes on, it  will leave no intellectual history behind for all of those who come later.

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.