We all heard Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) (no, not Mel Brooks) explain to Dr. Philip Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts and former senior adviser to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, his new and novel theories on the rise of ocean levels.
No, it wasn’t some new theory about global warming, greenhouse gases, Sun spots or cow flatulence, it was a rock-solid theory of ... rocks.
We will let Mo explain it in his own deadly clueless style —
Every single year that we’re on Earth, you have huge tons of silt deposited by the Mississippi River, by the Amazon River, by the Nile, by every major river system — and for that matter, creek, all the way down to the smallest systems. And every time you have that soil or rock whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise. Because now you’ve got less space in those oceans because the bottom is moving up."
What about the White Cliffs of Dover … [and] California, where you have the waves crashing against the shorelines, and time and time again you have the cliffs crashing into the sea? All of that displaces water which forces it to rise, does it not?
Dr. Duffy was not moved by these earth-shaking ideas and offered a level-headed science-heavy response, while his polar caps were melting — “I'm pretty sure that on human time scales, those are minuscule effects."
Mo Brooks sits on the house Committee on Science, Space and Technology, for which only the wackest troglodytes of the GOP get selected. Apparently, even Louie Gohmert failed to qualify.
Hunter has a comprehensive and humorous diary on this at www.dailykos.com/…
Let’s use this diary to contribute our own wild and wacky ideas on the reasons for ocean level rise. Let’s shy away from snarky jokes about rocks, let’s avoid the eye-rolls and face-palms; let’s focus on serious (not really), novel and tongue-in-cheek theories about why sea levels are rising and new and innovative techniques to slow it down and to stem the flood of scientific theories.
Kossacks with the most Recs will get a special internship in Congressman Brook’s office. Or at the Woods Hole institute, if you prefer that sort of thing. Perhaps, we can sneak in an earmark in a congressional bill to fund the most promising solutions. The idea of removing rocks from the oceans and selling them to gullible conservatives is already patented (or will be done retroactively) by Donald, Inhofe and Mo (aka the DIM group).
Here are a few theories from Hunter to get the ball rolling —
- Boats. We have a lot more boats these days. What if, like, us building all those boats is what's displacing water and causing Florida to gradually disappear.
- Whales. Rising sea levels can be directly attributed to the international ban on whaling. What if the ban on whale hunting is leading whale populations to rebound so quickly that all the extra whales are causing sea levels to rise, and if we continue to let whales run amok soon we will all be flooded with whales.
- What if the Earth is shrinking? So, like, it's the same amount of water but every year gravity is causing the planet to shrink a little.
Fire away with your water cannons!