Oh Mo!
Last week, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology met to discuss climate change.
Alabama Republican Congressman Mo Brooks is shockingly on that committeee although I have serious doubts that he has any damn idea what the hell they’re talking about.
But Mo has an idea about what causing the oceans to rise. It’s not the melting of the ice caps. No, sireee, those ice caps are probably just hiding below the surface. It’s rocks.
Rocks, and silt and stuff are causing the oceans to rise. I’ll let Mo explain because I seriously doubt I can.
“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,” Brooks said. “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.”
No. That’s not right. Vanna, tell him what he wins for the consolation prize.
” … it would take the equivalent of the top five inches of land from the entire surface area of the United States to cause the oceans to rise the 3.3 millimeters a year currently seen. And those five inches would have to fall into the oceans every year to explain the current rate at which they are rising.”
I would say, nice try Mo, but he really needs to just shuddup.
Thanks to Larry for the heads up.
It figures. Alabama has the worst educational system in the US.
1Why do they even bother to have schools?
After reading this, to get elected for office in AL means you have to be morally bankrupt and have the brain of a parasite.
2Imagine. Mo Brooks. Too st00pid to realize how st00pid he is. Watch out Louie. Every Republicon in the House is out to dethrone you as the most st00pid man in Congress.
3Cash Cows in the age climate denial = Drowning in your own ignorance.
WWJD? Fundamentalist Karma, Rapture, whiplash.
Lawyers for Noah’s Ark theme park are suing insurance company for rain damage.
But the insurance companies denied claims for the improvements, saying that the policy had an exclusion for correcting design deficiencies or faulty workmanship.The $120 million Ark Encounter, where adult tickets cost $48, was completed in 2016, with a zoo, zip lines, and a restaurant in addition to its five-story high replica ark.
The theme park was met with no small amount of controversy when it opened, focused mainly on its sources of funding, including the $62 million in junk bonds that were floated by the town of Williamstown.
It was the brainchild of the Ken Ham and his ministry, Answers in Genesis, which also created the Creation Museum. Ham, is a Christian fundamentalist and creationist who argues that the Bible is a historical narrative that is meant to be taken literally.
He believes that dinosaurs lived alongside humans and that the biblical flood created the Grand Canyon. And he maintains that Noah labored seven decades to construct his vessel and was 600 years old when the storm surged.
The ACLU and other groups charged that Answers in Genesis should have not been eligible for state and local subsidies because of its discriminatory hiring practices.
As a condition of employment, the museum and ark staff of 900, including 350 seasonal workers, must sign a statement of faith rejecting evolution and declaring that they regularly attend church and view homosexuality as a sin.
https://triblive.com/news/world/lawyers-for-noahs-ark-theme-park-are-suing-its-insurance-company-for-rain-damage/
4How about some actual apples to apples comparison?
Area of USA in square meters: 9.63 trillion.
Area of ocean surface: 501 million square kilometers.
Convert metrics to cm. Area x depth for volume of dirt.
5Divide by area of ocean.
Imaginary meeting between Mo Brooks and Ted Cruz:
Mo: … and at the rate silt and rocks fill the ocean, raising sea levels higher and higher every year…
6Ted: Soon the pirates of the high seas will be Space Pirates!
it’s called “displacement”, and it would require a noticeable amount of solid material, deposited annually, to cause it. pretty much any 7th grader could tell you this, but these guys aren’t just any 7th graders, they are the special, “super stupid, what in God’s name are we to do with you?” 7th graders. but even most of them eventually outgrow their extra-level stupid, and become contributing members of society. Trump and his incompetent criminal gang worked diligently to maintain theirs.
we’re doomed, aren’t we?
7I’m looking back at all the stones I used to skip in lakes as a kid, contributing to the catastrophe. Yeah I know it wasn’t into the ocean, but it just made that lakewater fill up the ocean faster.
8Good thing I’m not the self-flagellatin’ type or or I’d be hurtin sumpm awful right about now.
I’ll just have to suffer my shame in silence.
The USS Gerald R. Ford (newest aircraft carrier in the US Navy) will have a fully loaded displacement of 100,000 tons. This displaces a lot of ocean water, causing sea level rise.
Let’s get the Navy to park all the ships up on dry land when they’re not using them. That should help some.
9Huge tons of silt? I wonder how much bigger a huge ton is than an ordinary ton. Or a small ton. What measuring system do they use in Alabama?
10I don’t know if this is the same gasbag, but a story came out just like this before the 2018 election. Same premise, same jaw-dropping conclusion. Don’t have a link, but I remember it all the same.
I think Mo Brooks needs to examine the damage being done by the Tennessee River, and stop it before it adds to the silt build-up in the Gulf. That would be a glorious, transcendent help to this problem, and quite rightly within his purview. he’d be a hero, dammit!
11Back in the 80’s the local Houston tv stations hired non-meteorologists to present the weather. When we had a hurricane bearing down on us, one of them explained that hurricane winds are stronger offshore than they are onshore because there is less gravity offshore than there is over land. When I relayed this bit of information to my boss, a meteorologist, he didn’t blink and deadpanned it makes perfect sense because how else would boats float.
12My daughter and her family live in his congressional district they hope somebody send him a congratulatory pack of alum gum. Of course he will chew it. Hell, he’s a genius, ain’t he?
13@charles phillips–You’re right. This story came out at this time last year. It’s not new. I thought I recognized it too.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/05/17/heres-how-big-a-rock-youd-have-to-drop-into-the-ocean-to-see-the-rise-in-sea-level-happening-now/?utm_term=.28a028593921
14I’m picturing Mo lowering his big pink self into a bath, noticing the displacement, shouting “Eureka!” and rushing off to tweet his discovery of why the sea level is rising while water pours through his downstairs ceiling. This sort of overactive imagination keeps me sane. Sort of.
15I hope Mo reads this, cause I’m gonna give him some more info upon which he can wax stronger. Mo: It is not the dirt and rock in the rivers; it is the huge amount of space dust which falls on the Earth daily. Stuff from outer space, falling daily in huge quantities. Look it up if you don’t believe me. And there is just no tellin what kind of disease those dust storms are infecting us with.
16If you haven’t read “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming” by David Wallace-Wells, you should try. I say try, because it is so frightening I can only read small parts of it at a time. Rising sea level is just the tip of the iceberg (so to speak). Rising temperatures, food shortages, refugee numbers increasing are some of the disasters facing humankind.
17