Saw this and thought it was too good not to pass along:
The Hill reports that on Saturday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), who has been leading the legislative effort to confront climate change, used the occasion to chastise his obstructionist colleagues:
"An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan has broken off Greenland, creating plenty of room for global warming deniers to start their own country," Markey said in a statement.
Great idea. The population density of New York City is 26,403 people per square mile, so if the iceberg is approximately 100 square miles, that means over 26 million people can comfortably fit on it! Maybe not enough to accommodate every global warming denier, but as the old lawyer joke goes, "it's a good start".
But back to the story...
It is nice to see that at least some of our elected representatives believe in science. Markey continued:
"So far, 2010 has been the hottest year on record, and scientists agree arctic ice is a canary in a coal mine that provides clear warnings on climate." [...]
And that people like Representative Markey are unafraid to call out ignorance when they see it:
He said it was "unclear how many giant blocks of ice it will take to break the block of Republican climate deniers in the US Senate who continue hold this critical clean energy and climate legislation hostage."
Of course, when it comes to the skulls of climate change deniers, we are talking about materials far stronger than mere ice.
Anybody who has the slightest respect for science and scientific fact cannot ignore what is happening right now. That same story in Think Progress goes on to quote from a report published in Science last year which stated:
During the late 20th century, our proxy-inferred summer temperatures were the warmest of the past two millennia, with four of the five warmest decades of our 2000-year-long reconstruction occurring between 1950 and 2000. In recent years, the magnitude of the warming seems to have emerged above the natural variability, consistent with the sharp reduction in summer sea-ice cover.
Got that? The warmest it's been in the last 2000 years. Perhaps that's the way to get the attention of Republicans: put it in Biblical terms. This is the hottest it's been since Jesus rode the dinosaurs!
And from the comments under the story in The Hill which was the original source for the Markey quote comes this survey of scientists:
Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?
About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
"Only" 82%? Who were the doubters?
Petroleum geologists and meteorologists were among the biggest doubters, with only 47 percent and 64 percent, respectively, believing in human involvement.
Oh.