It's been 20 months since Barack Obama was inaugurated, 19 months since the Recovery Act began investing billions in producing clean energy, 16 months since the House passed carbon cap legislation and 10 months since the EPA declared it was obligated, following a Supreme Court ruling, to regulate greenhouse gases because global warming is real.
How have conservatives reacted to the return of science to our public policy decisions? Have they gone as crazy as they have about the economy, health care and Wall Street?
At the risk of giving away the ending, yes.
Please read the fourth edition of "Top 10 Crazy Things Conservative Say" anyway.
10.
"...the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide." - House Minority Leader John Boehner
9.
"Terrorism kills -- and Barbara Boxer's worried about the weather." - California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina
8.
"... whether it's the Chinese seeding clouds, whether it's some of the industrialized nations in the world trying to get together for cap-and-trade to try to reduce the CO2 emissions. You know, this might be the modern version of the rain dance" - Rep. Steve King
7.
"They used to talk about global warming -- y'all might remember a few years ago they were talking about an ice age was coming. It's the same folks, the folks who want to change America, want to rule America. They want to change us to a New World Order. President George Herbert Walker Bush, remember, very openly said he wanted to have a New World Order" - Rep. Paul Broun
6.
"[CO2] gets sucked down by trees and helps the trees grow" - Wisconsin Senate candidate Ron Johnson.
5.
"Carbon dioxide, Mister Speaker, is a natural byproduct of nature. Carbon dioxide is natural. It occurs in Earth. It is a part of the regular lifecycle of Earth. In fact, life on planet Earth can't even exist without carbon dioxide. So necessary is it to human life, to animal life, to plant life, to the oceans, to the vegetation that's on the Earth, to the, to the fowl that -- that flies in the air, we need to have carbon dioxide as part of the fundamental lifecycle of Earth." - Rep. Michelle Bachmann
4.
"Deniers? OK, OK, I'm one of those folks." - Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck
3.
"Cap and Trade, which is based on an unscientific hysteria over the man-caused global warming hoax, steps over the constitutional boundaries of the federal government..." - Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, from her original campaign website, taken down after winning her primary.
2.
"Adaptation to shifts in temperature is not that difficult ... During the Little Ice Age, both the Vikings and the British adapted to the cold by changing. I suppose that one possible adaptation response of Viking retrenchment and British expansion is that we're conducting the hearing today in English instead of Norwegian" -- Congressman and BP apologist Joe Barton
...And Number 1!
"I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back" - Rep. Michelle Bachmann
For more about how we can avert a climate crisis and create millions of new jobs producing clean energy and energy-efficiency, check out the Making Sense issue brief from Campaign for America's Future.