Al Gore is fat and rides in a jet

In case you've been sleeping in a cave in the Catskills for the last 20 years, the title of this post refers to the customary response of climate change denialists when confronted with the realities of climate disruption and global warming. Easy enough to maintain denial for the wilfully blind I guess, but for those who leave at sea level, it has come to this. Government of the Maldives has a resettlement plan for its entire population. Put up enough money to resettle all 350,000 of its residents.

In related news, weirdly warm all across the US.

Fueled by billions of tons of greenhouse pollution, a surge of record warmth has flooded the United States, shattering records from southern California to North Dakota. “Temperatures have reached up to 40 degrees above early January averages in North Dakota,” the Weather Channel reports. Cities are seeing late-April temperatures at the start of January — Minot, ND hit 61 degrees, Aberdeen, SD hit 63 degrees, and Williston, ND hit 58 degrees, all-time record highs for the month of January. [...]

Although this heat is welcome to schoolchildren, this breakdown of normal seasons threatens serious economic disruption. The total lack of snowcover in the Dakotas means that wildland fires are much more likely. The seasonally cold air following this surge of heat will severely damage the winter crops that are usually protected by at least 3 inches of snow at this time of year.

But Al Gore is fat, so, no worries, right? [graphic credit]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]