#ClimateChange: Another year for the record books

After 2016 was reportedly the second-warmest ever measured year for the United States, it now looks to be the warmest ever globally, surpassing .... 2015. Which surpassed ... 2014. More here, including some discussion of the effects of these back-to-back-to-back records starting to build up in places like the Arctic.

See a pattern there? Even you wingnuts in Row 47, steerage class?

If you still don't, here's detailed graphics.

Yep, heads are nodding.

So now, it's going to be more and more lines 2 and 3 from the wingnut playbook.

Line 2: "We admit that global warming and climate change are happening, but you haven't proven human causation."

If even that seems to be too strong of an outpost, then,

Line 3: "We admit that global warming and climate change are happening, but you haven't proven how much human causation is involved."

Those are always backstopped by

Line 4: "We admit that global warming and climate change are happening, but we can always mitigate any damages rather than spend money we don't need to spend now, and can't afford to spend now."

And

Line 5: "We admit that global warming and climate change are happening, but spending to mitigate any damages as they arise is better than socialist coercion."

As Trump's Interior Secretary nominee Ryan Zinke basically spouts Line 3, followed by unspoken versions of 4 and 5, and worse, EPA nominee Scott Pruitt still spouts Line 2, we need to up the fight, in Congress, in statehouses, in municipalities, and in the private sector. (More on the start of Pruitt's confirmation hearing here.)

Petitions need to be sent to commercial property insurance and reinsurance companies, pressuring them to jack their rates ever higher and start starving this capitalist reality-denying beast.

We also do not need to listen to the Scylla of some tech neoliberals whenever they promote climate engineering to fight climate change.