98% of scientists agree that climate change is real; that is, the earth is heating up faster than we thought. Polar ice caps melting faster, sea levels going up, drought, radically changing weather patterns; you know the drill. You might think this would be enough to convince almost everyone. I mean someone will always look at black and call it white no matter how many well-educated people tell them otherwise. It's just that I wonder about those 2% who seem determined to deny reality despite all the evidence the best of our science can present. I mean who the hell are these people?
Allow me to introduce Minnesota State Representative Glenn Gruenhagen, Republican representative from Glencoe. According to Think Progress, Rep. Gruenhagen claims, in a speech he made recently on the floor of the Minnesota State House, "that there has been no global warming for the last sixteen years." That this whole climate change thing is nothing more--hold on, here we go again--than a vast United Nations conspiracy.
To what end Rep. Gruenhagen chose not to elaborate. We are left to guess. Maybe he thought citing his source would be enough to convince us that he speaks the unvarnished truth. Seems his info comes from the good folks at the Conservative Political Action Committee, otherwise known as CPAC. You know, the folks that once a year bring us the latest from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other science denying luminaries who seem forever to be pontificating the same ignorance--that global warming is an elaborate hoax perpetrated by the secret world government to cheat the Koch brothers out of their petty cash pencil fund.
Here's the part the Honorable Mr. Gruenhagen doesn't grasp. According to Matt Kasper, writing in Think Progress, 98% of scientists disagree. "2010 was the hottest year on record and every year of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s average. Over 30 million people were displaced by climate- related extreme weather events in 2012, and it is increasingly likely that many millions more will be displaced in the near future."
Alas! And woe unto we believers in scientific evidence regarding the things of earth, wind, fire, and water! How shall we persuade the skeptics? Our very survival as a species may depend upon it.
Let us recognize the problem. It's not merely that Rep. Gruenhagen has a problem with global warming. The difficulty runs much deeper. He has a problem with science itself. The whole thing. Evidence be damned. This is someone who will swear up is down and down is up no matter how many times he falls off the roof.
But! All may not yet be lost! Allow me suggest the following curriculum.
Let us first take our unbelieving friend to the beach. Ask him to look out upon the horizon, the distant horizon where sea meets sky. "Observe," we say, "observe." This is important. Scientists are really big on this observing thing. Hell, half or more of what they get paid to do is just look at stuff and write down what they saw and I bet they get paid a shit load more than the rest of us for doing it--but I digress.
Suddenly, let's say, a pirate ship appears on the horizon! But wait! How do we know it's a pirate ship? The whole thing isn't visible yet; just the top of the mast. Then, upon further observation--there's that word again--gradually the whole ship, from top to bottom, emerges into clear view. "Damn. It's just David Koch out for a sail in his 3 million dollar sailboat."
Conclusion: the earth is not flat. It is instead round, or at least sort of round, more like an egg than a ball. If all the grey matter is working properly, out goes the old idea and in comes the new. It's not flat. It's round. Cool. Seems a change of mind should be in the offing from our representative. Not so.
Okay, let's try something else. Let's place our legislator under an apple tree. One of us will climb up, sit on a branch, take aim, and drop an apple upon our guest's pumpkin head. Doing this often enough should produce the observation--that word again--that the apple falls down instead of floating off into outer space toward Mars. If the desired change of mind does not follow, we should immediately change to something weightier, say, a brick. Should the sought after change not follow, that is, there is something called gravity, I suggest moving to a fourteen pound bowling ball. But that would have serious spinal implications that would defeat the purpose of our demonstration.
Were it not tragic the whole thing would be comical. But it's no joke that the polar ice caps and the Greenland ice sheet are disappearing at an exponential rate. Sea levels are rising. The ozone layer is damn near shot. Drought is rampant. Millions of refugees are on the move to who only knows where as the climate deniers fiddle while work crews bail water out of Manhattan subways.
This is what we are up against, folks. The 2% who, for reasons unknown to such as myself, are incapable of changing their minds no matter what the best scientists the world over will tell them over and over and over again. This shit is serious. And we're pretty much waist deep in it now and running out of time.
There's only one solution. Come January 1, 2014, every last one of them, from the state house to the outhouse, every last one of them must be voted out of office. Our survival as a species may well depend on it. Happy campaigning.
The Jawbone
